May 1, 2009 | lists
Just when you thought it was safe to venture into the barn again, after Bessie’s ozone layer destroying farts and Mad Cow disease, along comes the swine flu – the latest assault on humanity perpetrated by a creature most commonly seen on breakfast plates.
Given the amount of ink devoted to SARS, the bird flu, killer bees, etc, we can only guess that swine flu – so named because it is a mutation of a kind of flu found in pigs, not because the people who get it are assholes, cops or both – will be a boon for people who sell masks and bad news for Jimmy’s Oinker Palace Drive Thru BBQ and Carwash (and in our faces constantly until the mass media find another story to help stop their hemorrhaging, at least temporarily).
We’re of the opinion that something shouldn’t be called an epidemic until it fells at least one person on everybody’s Facebook page, but of course the media is doing the world a service by preaching caution. For example, if you work in a place where they kill 1 million pigs a year, don’t spend your break time taking deep breaths next to a giant pile of fly-infested shit.
Despite what lethargic vegetarians will tell you, pork makes everything better and we’re not going to forgo barbecues or snub any Chinese restaurants with menus in their windows bearing cartoon likenesses of our porcine friends, just in case there is some infinitesimal chance that we get our names on a newspaper’s front page in a nationwide swine flu death tally.
We reckon every pandemic needs a soundtrack (featuring tunes other than Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu), and there have been many – we put the number at 10 – written about pigs. Here then as we cough into our sleeves and get ready to order a couple of ham on ryes, are our Top 10 Swine Flu Songs!
10. Pigs in Zen: Jane’s Addiction. Perry Farrell said: “If you want to talk about reaching nirvana, reaching Zen, well, the pig is closer than we are because the pig doesn’t have material possessions.” While this can be said about any of the other 20 million species in existence (unless you exempt Rex and his chew toy, and primates from their implements of death), this is still a fine porcine ditty. If you can’t quite make out the lyrical nuances in the following video, he’s basically saying stuff like “Pig’s in the mud/When he tires/Pig’s in zen” and “Pig eats shit/But only when he hungers/Pig’s in zen.” Later on the pig gets butchered, the price he pays for this idyllic restful life he has always living in the moment. The human equivalent is an eviction notice from your mother’s basement.
9. Generation Swine: Mötley Crϋe. Mötley Crϋe did more for German Umlaut-related rock bands than anyone previously. Their song, Generation Swine and album of the same name don’t appear to have anything to do with our curly-tailed comrades, but we do find it ironic that such a staple of the 1980s would release something bearing nearly the same name as Hunter S. Thompson’s “Generation of Swine,” a send-up of the 1980s, and, more than likely, of them.
8. Pig: Weezer. “When I was a baby I was so happy, I played with my friends in the mud”. We were about to call Social Services on the singer’s mother, before we looked at the title of this one and realized he’s narrating the story from the perspective of a pig — and not the guys you see slumped along perverts’ row at strip clubs.
This song is the musical equivalent of Charlotte’s Web and has likely provided the soundtrack to many a mock-ham holiday roast. It tells the story of a young pig growing up happily, remembering how he used to frolic around in the barn and going to that fateful day with the cleaver. Nearly enough to make you consider holding the bacon on the next BLT, if there weren’t so much value in that extra value menu.
7. Swine: Elvis Costello. Elvis Costello has proven himself a capable interviewer on that new show of his, where he speaks to musicians like The Police and isn’t fazed by two thirds of the band’s conspicuous loathing of Sting—you’d be hard-pressed to find a group more embarrassed/appalled by their front man whose band name doesn’t start with a ‘U’ and have two letters in it.
As we’ve seen here, pigs have inspired their fair share of songs, at least ones we were able to uncover with minimal effort though Google, rather than low-balling garage sale vinyl vendors. This trend is likely to continue unless militant vegetarians— who despite their militancy can be still be blown over by a gust of wind strong enough to keep a flag fluttering—manage to exert enough influence that Green Eggs and Ham becomes Green Eggs and Tofurkey to future generations.
Elvis C. was more direct in this little ditty apparently penned about someone he loathed: “You’re a swine and I’m saying that’s an insult to the pig. In the foul furrow that you dig”. Let’s hope that if things go south with Diana Krall, she isn’t the same kind of reverse muse.
6. War Pigs: Black Sabbath. Ozzy didn’t have the rhyming dictionary handy when he penned “generals gathered in their masses, just like witches at black masses”.
Actually ‘War pigs’ themselves, nearly made it onto our list of Top 10 Exploding Animals because in ancient Rome, porkers were covered with flammable materials, set on fire, and driven towards enemy elephants to fend off the likes of Hannibal. Just like the other thing that gave Ned Beatty nightmares in Deliverance, the pigs’ squeals would apparently drive away the giant beasts. We don’t know how this idea was devised, but the Eternal City did boast a 7000 + volunteer fire department, and odds are pretty good that at least one of them was a pyromaniac—though lighting a pig on fire without an apple in its mouth and your neighbors over for beers seems a tad barbaric.
5. Pigs on the Wing / Pigs: Pink Floyd. The strangest declaration of love for one’s spouse ever recorded, we would’ve liked to have been a fly on the wall for that explanatory conversation with Mrs Roger Waters, along with anything “honey, does this make me look fat?”-related.
It would take going to the library and wading through a Pink Floyd unauthorized biography to find out why pigs feature so prominently in their music, as well as in Pink Floyd stage productions. Unless you count the first ten rows at a Bon Jovi concert, no other artist can make such a claim as to their influence.
4. Pearls before Swine: Bob Dylan. The phrase is of course, part of the Sermon on the Mount, which sounds like how you’d be lectured by ski patrol if you ventured off a black diamond run.
In all seriousness though, it’s that compilation of Jesus’ sayings [Matthew 7:6], that included ’salt of the earth’, ‘turning the other cheek’, ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ and those other pithy bits, which if he made those statements today, would comprise a greatest hits album and accompanying DVD.
‘Pearls before swine’ refers to ‘Items of quality offered to those who aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate them,’ kinda like complimentary opera tickets with your admission to a tug-o-war contest (this analogy might be a little thin, but we don’t claim to be theologians, unless the collection plate happens by).
3. March of the Pigs: Nine Inch Nails. Certainly not a toe-tapper to waltz to at the next luau-themed wedding, this song features the lyrics: “The pigs have won tonight”.
That might be true, but humankind will eventually prevail with a vaccine if not in reality, than in the Michael Bay version of events brought to the big screen. If researchers should fail and the thing spreads, well, you might find this website updated with considerably less frequency than it is now—i.e., not at all.
2. Spider Pig Song: The Simpsons. Some things in life are a mystery, like when in every mediocre action movie somebody with a blazer and a crew cut says “Gentlemen, failure is not an option”. Another mystery is how Homer Simpson’s ‘Spider Pig’ song amassed more than 5 and a half million Youtube views. While it’s a catchy ditty (“Spider pig, spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does, can he swing from a web? no he can’t, ’cause he’s a pig”) we weren’t sure about its inclusion here. However, considering that if you add up all of Elvis Costello’s Youtube views (we don’t recommend this as a way to spend a rainy afternoon) you probably wouldn’t even come close to this song…anyhow…on to our numero uno.
1. Piggies: The Beatles. Charlie Manson, the serial killer and popularizer of the Swastika tattoo between the eyes (a look that hasn’t really caught on in that it’s pretty career-limiting— unless you have a job that requires wearing a hat) was apparently so influenced by this song that the phrase “death to pigs”, was scrawled in blood on the walls of the Tate mansion.
If things had turned out differently, say, if Neil Young or the Beach Boys had secured him a record deal, he might’ve followed a different path other than mass murderer or maybe written “death to walruses or Paul McCartney” instead. Here’s Manson warbling ‘Look at Your Game Girl‘. We’re pretty sure after enduring this, that Charlie made the right career choice. Part of an animal triad of songs (Blackbird and Rocky Raccoon being the others) on the Beatles album, it was first considered an anti police song among the many, less killing-fueled interpretations.
[...] Vegetarian Blog – Join The Fun added an interesting post today on Top 10 Swine Flu SongsHere’s a small readingDespite what lethargic vegetarians will tell you, pork makes everything better and we’re not going to forgo barbecues or snub any Chinese… [...]
Man, you guys come up with these quick. THhis is one of the funnier ones I’ve read. Keep up the excellent work.
You’re missing the obvious front runner here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbt_PuVAVTU
You’re missing the obvious fron runner here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbt_PuVAVTU
…and Martha My Dear is about a sheepdog.
What about I’m Boared by Iggy Pop?
[...] bookmarks tagged weezer Top 10 Swine Flu Songs saved by 3 others mastersensai13 bookmarked on 05/04/09 | [...]
[...] of a kind of flu found in pigs, not because the people who get it are assholes, cops or both – click for more var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : [...]
I think that this website is one of the best in the world and i go on it everyday ;) rock on SHARK GUYS!!! woooooooooo! x p.s ( i stink of sweat) Love Wendy x
Visit http://www.SongsLyricsMusic.com to hear the just-released Flu Song, a catchy, country two-steppin’ tune, with Oney Oink and his Barnyard Critters. Video version coming soon.
Here’s The Flu Song Comedy Video, I promised. Have a laugh.
Life is short!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv4dL9uu9aI