anonymous Sep 2nd 2011 !⃝I totally concur with Ramone and only add that Pink Floyd and Roger Waters seem to have an affinity with animal imagery. And whilst I have no doubt Roger Waters would have read 1984 and Animal Farm at some point, I think the only effect Orwell had on this album was that Waters may have just thought animals make brilliant metaphors. Plus, at the time, animal imagery was all the rage in England.
I love this album because I believed it was the most 'fun' album Pink Floyd ever made. A 45 minute cryptic crossword where the clues are sung to you.
For me 'Sheep' is about Roger Waters' favourite subject - war. Or more specifically, those who fight wars, the lambs to the slaughter.
I think it's first told from the point of view of a veteran of war who is trying to caution those who are 'harmlessly passing their time in the grassland away', but then he seems more passive, taking on the role of an observer, looking on in resignation as the world goes to war again. The dogs here are not the same as the dogs from 'Dogs'. I believe these are Marc Antony's dogs, as in 'cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war!'
Also, I believe the reference to Jordan is less about the country or river and more about the song 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot', which is a song about death. Waters seems to be saying 'death is not a chariot ride. It's ugly.' Or put more elegantly, 'I have looked over Jordan and I have seen - things are not what they seem.'
My favourite verse of any of Roger Waters' lyrics;
'What do you get for pretending the danger's not real?
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well-trodden corridors into the valley of steel'
That last line is perfect songwriting, rhythmically and thematically, it just rolls off the tongue and it neatly sums up the process of Basic Training and the segue to war using the imagery of an abattoir. (loooove iiit!)
Then we have the reality of war sinking in.
Then the POV shifts from the observer to a lamb (soldier) reciting a parody of the 23rd Psalm. (not incidentally, the 23rd Psalm is usually spoken before entering a fray)
Then we're into it - lambs to the slaughter. Then...
'Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead!
You better stay home and do as you're told
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.'
I don't think Waters' is suggesting that an uprising has occurred at the end. I think that's staring a bit hard into the soup.
For mine, we're back to the veteran, who proclaims that war is dead. Those that have survived have only to live the rest of their lives in quiet passivity to die of old age.
Hey, I didn't say he wasn't morbid.
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