![\"Roger](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Roger-Waters-1985-Pink-Floyd-Musician-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Mon 27 October 2025 20:00, UK <\/p>\n
In the latter days of the 1970s, punk and Pink Floyd<\/a> got along just fine.<\/p>\n While the new wave spelt an existential bludgeon to the bloated excesses of prog and arena rock in general, Pink Floyd sailed through the insurrectionary year zero filled with the same well of alienated fever and political seethe that fuelled the likes of The Clash or the Sex Pistols, despite the latter\u2019s frontman infamously sporting an \u2018I Hate Pink Floyd\u2019 T-shirt.<\/p>\n The fact is, bassist and principal songwriter Roger Waters was angry, too. Many artists in his situation would have been more than happy with their lot. After the rocky creative waters following the absence of their founding songsmith Syd Barrett in 1968, Pink Floyd limped on with a string of mushy and half-baked jam records before flashing cosmic greatness on 1971\u2019s Meddle. Once The Dark Side of the Moon was released two years later, Pink Floyd stood at the peak of critical acclaim and commercial success among the entire progressive cohort, their definitive LP still standing as the fourth biggest-selling album of all time.<\/p>\n A broiling contempt for the music industry, disgust at the ever-unruly audiences disrupting their live shows, and the social malaise that fogged the nation, setting the stage for the political upheaval that was to bludgeon the country in due time, all swirled with belligerent charge on 1977\u2019s Animals<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sonically soaking up punk\u2019s grit and urgent energy, Waters fired off a lyrical attack on society\u2019s \u2018animals\u2019 as a means to explore the day\u2019s capitalist rot. The ruthless dogs, the greedy pigs, and the docile sheep, while perhaps on the nose, marked a thematic angle that eschewed cerebral fodder for a fable headed straight for the jugular.<\/p>\n Yet, Waters didn\u2019t want Animals to remain one note. Mindful of the record\u2019s wrath, two brief acoustic numbers in separate parts were placed as bookends on either side of the tracklist, serving as a wistful and romantic opener and conclusion to pull the album from the brink of nihilism. <\/p>\n \u201cThere was a certain amount of doubt as to whether that one was going to find its way onto this album, but I thought it was very necessary,\u201d Waters once revealed in an interview. \u201cOtherwise, the album would have just been a kind of scream, you know, of rage.\u201d<\/p>\n