Inspired by the groundbreaking music of Chrome, Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Portion Control, The Legendary Pink Dots, and others, Skinny Puppy experimented with electronic recording techniques and methods. the band composed multi-layered music generally using keyboards, synthesizers, found sounds, drum machines, live percussion, tape splices, samplers, and conventional rock music instruments. Whereas many contemporary remixes and re-edits of songs were created in order to make a song more suitable for dancing or different radio formats, Skinny Puppy approached remixing and re-editing as an artistic process of reinterpreting compositions, often using remixes to push their sound into styles of ambient, dub and techno. Skinny Puppy's often informal, improvisational approach to musical composition is indicated by use of the term brap, coined by them and defined as a verb meaning "to get together, hook up electronic instruments, get high, and record".
Skinny Puppy's first two proper releases, Bites and Remission, fall somewhere between the found-sound chaos of early Cabaret Voltaire and the abrasive, futuristic synthpop of the Units or Crash Course in Science. While the intense synth programming, abstract rhythms, and surreal samples--all Puppy trademarks--are present here, the albums owe as much to new wave as to industrial.
A subsequent EP, Chainsaw, featured a remix of Bites's "Assimilate" that earned the band some attention from club DJs. 1986's Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse earned Skinny Puppy greater attention, as "Dig It" and "Stairs and Flowers" became alternative club and college radio hits; the video for the former was played occasionally on MTV. The album is arguably less club-friendly than its predecessors, as the band continues to refine a claustrophobic, almost surreal sound that buries rhythm and melody. The follow-up, Cleanse, Fold, and Manipulate treads similar territory.
VIVIsectVI was a breakthrough for the band, with "Testure" becoming their biggest club hit to date, and the album itself was received warmly by college radio. The title of the album was a pun intended to associate vivisection with Satanism (ie. the "666 sect"). The album shows SP integrating more political and social themes: "Testure" is an animal rights song; "VX Gas Attack" concerns the use of chemical weapons; "State Aid" promotes sexual abstinence to stop the spread of AIDS/HIV.
Ogre had become very interested in Ministry and Al Jougensen's side projects, and he persuaded the rest of the band to allow Jourgensen to produce Rabies. While "Worlock" (a track Jourgensen didn't produce) remains an industrial club classic, the album was received coolly, as many thought Jourgensen's heavy metal guitar-based signatures did not compliment SP's more complex, intricate sonic sculptures. The band briefly disbanded afterward.
They reformed and returned to their electronic roots with Too Dark Park, a hallucinogenic album that owes as much to psychedelia as industrial music. Two years later, "Last Rights" covered similar territory, culminating in the epic sound sculpture "Download." Although their sound had moved away from industrial dance, these albums expanded the band's audience, and provided the template for many industrial bands of the 1990s.
Following "Last Rights", the band, poised for a major breakthrough in the wake of Nine Inch Nails' commercial success, left their longtime label Nettwerk for American Recordings. Their highly anticipated followup was unfortunately marred by personal tragedy - the death of Dwayne Goettel - and the band's inability to agree on a direction for the record. Numerous producers, including Martyn Atkins (PigFace/Invisible Records founder) and Roli Mosimann (Swans), came and went without success; finally the band regrouped with longtime collaborator Dave "Rave" Ogilvie to finish "The Process". The band expanded their range, working with gothic pop and heavy metal, alongside their familiar electronic textures. While seemingly rushed to completion following Goettel's death (it sounds half-finished in parts), it is an interesting change for the group. Unfortunately American Recordings, tired of waiting for the record, did little to promote it. Skinny Puppy broke up afterward.
With interests in filmmaking, they made a number of music videos, each attempting to further the theme and concept of the composition at hand. Most of these videos received little air play by major music video networks such as MTV (USA) and MuchMusic (Canada) and some were outright banned. For example the video for "Worlock" was universally banned because it is a "non stop gore fest" of clips from various horror movies. Because none of these clips were authorized for usage in the video it has never been commercially available.
Their concerts have been marked by their bizarre and bloody conceptual performance art, which for every concert was planned with the intention of challenging the notions of all who observed. Their music had some acceptance in dance clubs because of its danceable beats, but had little play on commercial radio. Skinny Puppy had little commercial success outside of Canada, but their influence on industrial music is immense.
The band began with the intention of doing something "raw" and "real." Ogre's vocals, one of Skinny Puppy's most recognizable features, are typically roughly growled snarls of half-sentences and fragmented stream of consciousness. Lyrical themes included animal rights, politics, religion, horror, drug abuse, disease, and environmental degradation; these themes were often lyrically and conceptually intertwined. Other core aspects of the Skinny Puppy sound include the mixture of heavy sampling and experimental noise with softer musical styles sometimes approaching synthpop.
Post-punk politics are a recurring theme utilised by Skinny Puppy. Some say the meaning of their name is that their music and lyrics give a view of the world from the eyes of a starving animal. They have long had an interest in animal rights; this is most obvious in their song Testure, which is about vivisection and other animal testing being scientific fraud. During many of their concerts Ogre would take the role of "scientist" and experiment on a stuffed animal. In 1988 they were arrested for their mocked-up vivisections, and found it ironic to be arrested for a parody of what was happening for real across the street from their concert. During their TGWOTR tour, criticism of the Bush regime was a recurring theme, particularly during their performance of VX Gas Attack, a song about atrocities perpetrated by Saddam Hussein, originally released while he was still considered an ally of the United States.
The last two studio albums are points of contention for old school Puppy fans. During the recording of The Process, the band broke up. Even more tragically, Dwayne Rudolph Goettel died, from an apparent heroin overdose at his parent's home, soon afterwards. Some people say that cEvin, Nivek, and Dwayne didn't connect as well on this album as they had earlier because their respective musical interests were diverging at the time, others claim it was the heroin.
Key and Ogre later reunited as Skinny Puppy for a one-off concert in Germany in 2003. Afterwards, they decided Skinny Puppy should continue as an ongoing project. The newly reconstituted Skinny Puppy released The Greater Wrong of the Right in 2004, their first studio album in 8 years, and have been continuing since, constantly evolving their sound.
There have been a number of Skinny Puppy side projects, both before, and after the breakup in 1995. The Tear Garden is a collaboration between cEvin and Edward Ka-Spel (and later most band members) of The Legendary Pink Dots. Other noteable side projects include Download, Hilt, Plateau, Cyberaktif (a collaboration between Key & Goettel and Bill Leeb, a.k.a. Wilhelm Schroeder), Rx (one-off collaboration between Ogre and Martin Atkins), ADuck (Goettel's side project), A CHUD Convention (one-off collaboration with a;GRUHM...), Ogre's contributions to Pigface, Ogre and Mark Walk's band ohGr and solo releases from cEvin Key.
Cullorblind
Skinny Puppy Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Educated and believes
Unload a gun the sun
Into the breach from which it came
Aside from writing walls up
Put on as if facts to see
Reactions cause deferral
Pissing on clocks uncertain
Heavy breathing can he breathe
This test is way past stress points
Pushes buttons full release
They change the world for certain
Meaning and false profits made
We're spending all the future
Future's never ours to see
Hang it up
(Spin with contented vision)
Back it out
(Put it back in its place)
Fade for what my black eyes colorize
Pack it up
(Stop losing opposition)
Shake it out
(Putting up with this place)
Stained bloodied eyes red full of lies colorize
Fade out in one act
Overturning neverending dream
All coming caught up in
The moments we can never see
Aside from writing walls up
(Forever hating)
Put on as if facts to see
(Forever getting)
Reactions cause deferral
(Forever taking taking...)
From a passed on future's needs
Hang it up
(Spin with contented vision)
Back it out
(Put it back in its place)
Shade for what my black eyes colorize
Pack it up
(Stop losing opposition)
Shake it out
(Putting up with this place)
Stained bloodied eyes red full of lies colorize
The party's lost a lot of cash and forest for the trees
Believing this day cannot never older than my trees
Eyes gonna hate
Want want wanna wanna wake up
Wanna wanna wake up
Eyes don't hate what
Wanna wanna wake up
Wanna wake up
Wanna wanna wake up
Eyes gonna hate that
Wanna wanna wake up
Eyes gonna hate that
Wanna wanna wake up
Eyes don't fake that
Wanna want to make up
Otherwise face it
Ever ever
The lyrics to Skinny Puppy's song "Colorblind" are complex and open to interpretation. The song seems to be a critique of our modern society's disregard for the future, especially in the face of environmental destruction caused by our actions. The haunting and disjointed music sets the perfect tone for the lyrics, which suggest a sense of despair and hopelessness.
The first two lines of the song, "Under a cave-in beaten, educated and believes," hint at a society that has been brought to its knees by its own actions, yet still clings to misguided beliefs. The third line, "Unload a gun the sun," could suggest that we have won a Pyrrhic victory, killing ourselves in the process of achieving something. The rest of the song seems to advise us to give up trying to change the future, as it is already lost. The lines "They change the world for certain, meaning and false profits made, We're spending all the future, future's never ours to see," suggest that we have already lost control of our destiny and are merely going through the motions.
The repeated lines "Hang it up, Back it out, Pack it up, Shake it out" could suggest an attempt to remove ourselves from a situation that we cannot control. The lyrics "Eyes gonna hate, Want want wanna wanna wake up, Wanna wanna wake up, Eyes don't hate what, Wanna wanna wake up, Wanna wake up, Wanna wanna wake up," may be a call to action, to wake up to the reality of our situation and work towards meaningful change. However, the final lines "Otherwise face it, Ever ever" suggest a sense of resignation, and an acceptance that we may be too late to change our fate.
Line by Line Meaning
Under a cave-in beaten
Feeling trapped and defeated
Educated and believes
Despite knowledge, still believes in false things
Unload a gun the sun
Giving up and surrendering to the forces around
Into the breach from which it came
Going back into old, familiar situations
Aside from writing walls up
Still holding onto past grudges
Put on as if facts to see
Ignoring the truth and pretending to believe in false things
Reactions cause deferral
Reacting impulsively rather than thinking things through
From a passed on future's needs
Ignoring the needs of future generations
Pissing on clocks uncertain
Wasting time and not using it wisely
Heavy breathing can he breathe
Feeling suffocated and overwhelmed
This test is way past stress points
Feeling like life has become too difficult to manage
Pushes buttons full release
Taking drastic action to relieve stress and frustration
They change the world for certain
People who have power can influence the course of the world
Meaning and false profits made
Some people manipulate others for their own personal gain
We're spending all the future
We're using up resources that will be needed by future generations
Future's never ours to see
We can't predict what will happen in the future
Hang it up (Spin with contented vision)
Letting go of grudges and finding inner peace
Back it out (Put it back in its place)
Putting things back to how they were before they became stressful
Fade for what my black eyes colorize
Trying to escape the misery of reality
Pack it up (Stop losing opposition)
Standing up for oneself and not letting others control us
Shake it out (Putting up with this place)
Trying to cope with a difficult environment
Stained bloodied eyes red full of lies colorize
Looking at the world through a filter of lies and deceit
The party's lost a lot of cash and forest for the trees
The world has been exploited for the sake of personal gain and profit
Believing this day cannot never older than my trees
Fearing that time is running out and the future will be bleak
Eyes gonna hate
Feeling bitterness and anger
Want want wanna wanna wake up
Desiring to wake up from a suffocating environment
Eyes don't hate what
It's better to let go of anger and bitterness
Eyes gonna hate that
Still feeling angry and full of hate
Eyes don't fake that
Being true to oneself and not pretending
Wanna want to make up
Seeking reconciliation and resolution
Otherwise face it Ever ever
Confronting the difficult realities of life
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Just tv1
Handover might actually be my favorite skinny puppy album. I love all of their work. But this album just hits different. The Process is a close contender. Too Dark Park & Last Rights are by far superior but personally I love this album.
Alien inthewindow
Love This song!!!!
kozad
One of my favorite SP tracks - what a shame that the album isn't available to stream in the states.
EaT YoUR CerEal
Idk. You can buy it off of amazon for like 8 bucks, so maybe look onto that
abdul
I was just wondering why this wasn’t on Spotify lol.
Just tv1
I bought it on Amazon when it came out I still have it on my streaming Amazon prime.
Xaikken
one of my favorite skinny puppy songs, nobody ever gets skinny puppy lyrics correct. smh
Nathan Hammond
The lyrics are pretty well spot-on, as I can ascertain
Nathan Hammond
The lyrics are more a process than an event.
Hellscr333m
Much better quality than all of the other uploads of this song. Thank you so much!