Pig: Difference between revisions

| Released = [[June 11]], [[2008]]

| Live debut = [[May 9]], [[2018]] in [[Rivers Cuomo concert: 05/09/2018|San Francisco, CA]] (Cuomo-only)

"'''Pig'''" is the twelfth track on the deluxe edition of ''[[Weezer (The Red Album)|The Red Album]]''.

*''[[Weezer (The Red Album)]]'' (Deluxe, 2008)

*''[[Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years]]'' (2020)

{{Rivers|I’m working on a song called “Pig,” which, ah, follows the life of a pig, from when it’s just a little piglet on the farm, playing with other animals, to a point where it’s grown up and married and has kids, but then it eventually [laughs], it gets slaughtered!}}</blockquote>

:::—''[[Harvard Crimson interview with Rivers Cuomo - April 26, 2006|Interview with ''The Harvard Crimson'', 2006]]''<ref name="crimson">Riesman, Abe J. "Rivers' End: Weezer’s frontman speaks out on women, Expos, what he’s writing now, and his marriage to a Japanese girl" ''The Harvard Crimson''. 26 April 2006. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/4/26/rivers-end-in-early-1995-a/</ref>

[[Rivers Cuomo]] is first known to have been demoed in [[2006]]. Like other songs written during the era (such as "[[The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)|The Greatest Man That Ever Lived]]), "Pig" eschews the band's typical verse-chorus structure. Though Cuomo has not commented on the song's inspiration, Cuomo (a lifelong vegetarian) mentioned in a June 2006 interview that he was struck by the cruelty of the eponymous character in the novel ''[[Wikipedia:Robinson Crusoe|Robinson Crusoe]]''. "Like there's so little feeling of compassion or regret that he has to kill the animals to survive. I'm not sure what to make of it yet. The way he describes it is so cold[...] It never occurred to him that the suffering of the animals is something to worry about or to feel sorry about[...] Maybe there's something in me that's reacting to this and that maybe other people wouldn't notice it."<ref>"Alt Rocker Finds Inner Peace" ''Beliefnet''. June 2006. https://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/music/2006/06/alt-rocker-finds-inner-peace.aspx</ref> The track that follows "Pig" on ''The Red Album'', "[[The Spider]]," similarly conveys a empathy for animals, through the metaphor of a dying spider in a drain.

Cuomo first mentioned the existence of "Pig" in an interview with ''The Harvard Crimson'' in April of 2006.<ref name="crimson" /> A year later, in April of [[2007]], Cuomo's acoustic demo was anonymously leaked by Cuomo to music blogs,<ref>Raftery, Brian. "Leak Of The Day: Rivers Cuomo Takes A Trip To The Animal Farm" ''Idolator''. 9 April 2007. https://www.idolator.com/250650/leak-of-the-day-rivers-cuomo-takes-a-trip-to-the-animal-farm</ref> the first new song by Cuomo heard by fans since the release of {{PN|Weezer}} ''[[Make Believe]]'' in [[2005]]. The demo's MP3 metadata indicated that the song was the twelfth track on an 18-track demo titled ''[[Deliverance at Hand!]]'', which fans would later discover was a collection of Cuomo's demos in contention for Weezer's planned [[Weezer (The Red Album)|sixth album]].

Prior to the release of ''The Red Album'', Cuomo teased on Myspace that the album's debut single would be about a "four-legged pink farm animal," likely a deliberate misdirect to lead fans to believe the song would be "Pig," instead of the actual single, "[[Pork and Beans]]." A full-band recording of "Pig" was ultimately released as a bonus track on ''Red's'' deluxe version. The studio version of the song forgoes the demo's use of harmonica in favor of synthesized strings. This version also adds sound effects for the "whiplash sound" and claps mentioned in the lyrics.

[[Category:Weezer songs]][[Category:Rivers Cuomo songs]]

[[Category:Songs on Weezer (The Red Album)]][[Category:Songs on Alone X: The Red-Raditude-Hurley Years]]