Who was dragged down by the stone?
Animals and the 1977 In the Flesh Tour

edited by Dave Ward

Gilmour: "So [when recording Wish You Were Here] we had these three pieces of music called 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond', 'You Gotta Be Crazy' and 'Raving and Drooling' which we were, at one point, going to put together on an album.... We got most of the basic recording done of 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' before Roger got stuck into the thing of splitting it in the middle and writing all this extra stuff and making an idea out of the whole thing. So, in fact had those other two numbers left over from that same period which we then used on Animals." --Innerview, radio interview by Jim Ladd, June 1978

Gilmour: "[We] made Animals knowing that we were in it because we liked doing it, we had something to do and say, and we liked making this music. So we were there, it was very, very positive. It was a joyful album to make, Animals, although [laughing] that may not seem like it to you! The content of what we were putting down may not reflect that, but it was a very positive attitude amongst the whole [band] when we made that record, which was absent when we made Wish You Were Here." --Innerview, radio interview by Jim Ladd, June 1978

Gilmour: "We'd already got two-thirds of the way through that album before that concept about it came." --Innerview, radio interview by Jim Ladd, June 1978

Waters: "It wasn't until we were recording those pieces ['Raving and Drooling' and 'You Gotta Be Crazy'] it occurred to me that they could be cobbled together under the title Animals."

Gilmour: "Animals started with those two numbers which we wrote. Roger had another song which had a different title but it was about pigs. And having written 'Pigs' he then looked again at the songs 'Raving and Drooling' and 'You Gotta Be Crazy' and realised how close they were to an animals concept.... And then, having already recorded most of 'Dogs'... and most of 'Raving and Drooling', changed the lyrics slightly here and there and tailored it in more. We then did some extra bits and effects and stuff to change it all into that concept." --Innerview, radio interview by Jim Ladd, June 1978

Gilmour: "Seems to me Roger is probably talking about himself more, in a general way.... On the Animals album he's talking about more specific types of people, which aren't all the people that there are in the world. There are those types of people that we do meet. I think those people on the earlier [songs] are directed more at people that he feels an affinity in, and the ones on Animals are directed more towards people he has an antipathy towards. Mind you, he is also accusing himself of having all those qualities, and all of us of having all those qualities. It's quite an angry record as well." --Innerview, radio interview by Jim Ladd, June 1978

Gilmour: "[Dogs] was just a simple little chord sequence that I had written and that everyone seemed to like. I liked it because all the chords were very unusual chords and you could play almost any note over the top of them. Like for guitar solos they were great because you could play nearly any note. So you can zoom around anywhere and not worry about what frets you hit or anything because almost anything you do hit if you do it deliberately enough will sound all right." --The Source (radio), circa 1984

Wright: "[Animals] was the first one I didn't write anything for. And it was the first album, for me, where the group was losing its unity as well. That's when it was beginning where Roger wanted to do everything. There are certain bits of music that I quite like, but it's not my favorite album of the Floyd."

Wright: "It was difficult. It was 1977 and that was when Roger really began to start believing that he was the sole writer of the band. With regards to that album, it was partly my fault, because I didn't have much to offer. Dave, who did have something to offer, only managed to get a couple of things on there. I like my playing on the album, but it wasn't a fun record to make. Compared to, say, Wish You Were Here... Animals was a slog. But I didn't have anything to offer, material wise, so I was in a difficult situation." --EMI web site, August 1996, interview by Mark Blake

Gilmour: "I never expected Animals to sell as many as Wish You Were Here or Dark Side, because it's aimed at a narrower audience. There's not a lot of sweet, sing-along stuff on it!"

Waters: "I like the four phallic towers. And the idea of power I find rather appealing in a strange way."

Gilmour: "People like us in the rock 'n' roll business we, in however a minor way that we've actually done it, in our rise to fame and fortune we've trodden on people at times. We've been hungry to get the meat." --Innerview, radio interview by Jim Ladd, June 1978

Waters: "Animals was only released because we succumbed to material greed." --February 1980, Pink Floyd: Through the eyes of...


Dave Ward is former editor of The Steel Breeze Pink Floyd news service, which published its final issue on 1 March.