Pink Floyd Lyrics, Themes & Meanings: The Dogs Of War

The Dogs Of War 6:08
(written by Gilmour, Moore)

Lyrics:
Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don't discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
Hell opened up and put on sale
Gather 'round and haggle
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know the webs we weave

One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world (2x)

Invisible transfers and long distance calls
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can't stop what has begun
Signed and sealed, they deliver oblivion
We all have a dark side, to say the least
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast

One world, it's a battleground
One world, and they gonna smash it down
One (5x) . . . One world (2x)

The dogs of war won't negotiate
The dogs of war won't capitulate
They will take and you will give
And you must die so that they may live
You can knock at any door
But wherever you go, you know they've been there before
Well, winners can lose and things can get strained
But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain

One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world (4x)

A song that seemed to hark back to Dogs on Animals by describing a particular kind of dog, The Dogs of War also benefited from Anthony Moore's help on the words.

Dave Gilmour: "I had the idea and explained it to Anthony and he came up with the first draft of words - we chopped and changed it over quite a long time until it wound up as it is. The music was done, fairly much, when we had a computer accident that took a sample of someone laughing and accidentally played it. In the background, this laughter actually sounded like dogs yapping and the way I'd sung the demo also had elements of that long before we had that lyric. It's about physical and political mercenaries, really." [TAP 41]

Nick Mason: "I like Dogs of War because it's a great R&B track to play live." [TAP 51]

TRACK LISTING