Sheep in Popular culture: Pink Floyd's take on sheep

[MoxleyJ]

There is a deacon in my congregation that loves music. He plays the flute with the choir. Around Christmas he'll give me a copy of a favorite CD. Last year it was Jethro Tull's Christmas Cd. I didn't know Jethro Tull made a Christmas CD. This year, it was Pink Floyd's CD "Animals."

The metaphor for sheep has been constantly before me since I have read Shepherds after my own heart.This was the book I chose for the reading assignment. But after reading it, I had to order "While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks" for my personal devotionals. It's been everywhere.

So, I've been thinking about the metaphor for sheep and how does the metaphor translate into 21st century thinking. While I appreciate Pink Floyd to a degree, they are not one of my favorites. I like "Comfortably Numb" ok, and I laugh when I think about the contemporary church musician who was asked to play for a traditional church congregation. No guidance was given to play for the offertory, so the musician, who was told to play "some offertory music" played Pink Floyd's "Money." Still makes me chuckle to envision that scene. Anyway, here is Wikipedia's encyclopedic entry for Pink Floyd's take on Sheep:

Sheep in Animals are not so different from the ones in George Orwell's 1945 novel Animal Farm. The sheep represent the lowest class of the social system, the proletariat. They are oblivious and exploited, "only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air". In the first verse they are described to be peacefully grazing - unaware that they are soon to be brought to a slaughterhouse. They are warned of the presence of dogs, the iron-handed guardians of the system. It is also described in the first few lines that the artist had "looked over Jordan and I have seen / Things are not what they seem," which is a reference to Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and has become an idiom for having an ecstatic vision, especially one involving death, particularly one's own. In the book of Exodus, the Israelites must cross the river Jordan to get to the "Promised Land" after their escape from Egyptian Slavery.

In the second verse the awful truth suddenly dawns on them and with "terminal shock in (their) eyes" they realize that they are being led into the "valley of steel", which is a metaphorical phrase, because it also represents the high-rise buildings (hence the steel framework), home of the corporate world as well as the slaughterhouse. The song continues into a mock biblical verse in which the sheep describe their dedicated belief in their master with "great power and great hunger." But in a humorous turnabout the sheep, "through quiet reflection and great dedication" master the art of karate and rebel against the dogs.

The third verse describes the sheep's revolt, as they fall "on his neck with a scream." They might have had enough but they are still undereducated and uncivilized as they are described as "demented avengers." The song is completed with a cheerful announcement: "Have you heard the news? / The dogs are dead!" The sheep, because of their strength in numbers, overpower and kill the dogs.

Despite popular belief, this is likely not a reference to the Russian October Revolution as represented in Animal Farm because the album is specifically a critique of western capitalism.

What Pink Floyd doesn't realize is that there is no way, even in a song parody (at best and blasphemous at worst) is that sheep can "because of their strength in numbers, overpower and kill the dogs." They aren't capable of such action. Their use of the metaphor misses the mark. Only with a shepherd can sheep be protected from "the dogs." And while I understand this is a poetical commentary on capitalist society, it becomes even more poignant that we Americans caught up in capitalistic societies desperately need the leading of the shepherd to deliver us from such dangers to our souls as well as harm to our physical states.

There are real dangers. It is humbling to think of ourselves as sheep. But the metaphor is caught even by pop culture in the rock group Pink Floyd.