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.
It's History
Skinny Puppy Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
The cliff striped bare
False of all that's becoming my own
A taste to open doors in space
Let it go, your disgrace
Happy lifeless flowers touch
No water left to nourish it
Dried elastic-plastic fuel
To see life waste inches time
To think all feeling gray
When I looked up to you
You looked down on me that's nothing new
It's history…
The flood, the blood to drown within
Forget it all again
The whistle snakes like, crafty fingers
Letters switching left unread
Ripple life effect detected
Whispers thinning out the back
Being lasting corpuscle
Lifetimes the nervous ending
Mantle dusted nerverosa
The fog that (puppet?) Dances whispering
Calling boxed in need of distance
People's place's and closing in (?)
Magnet magnet manic in resistance
The abstract vision feeding
Comatose star, speeding lances
Boils that (bores in?) Deep besides the mind
Filter falls on dark gray-matter
Filter feeding on the mind
Falls on dark gray-matter
Fascination in decline…
Degraded fixed the solid pattern
Motion drifted eyesore daze
Let him alter, let it go, again…
Wishes in the dirty glow
Let it alter, let it go
Let it go…
To hide all key or rented parting
Lip shed skin retina (?)
Kin imbued tread showers all
Broken across the crawling box.
When I looked up to you
You looked down on me that's nothing new
It's history…
The lyrics to Skinny Puppy’s song “It’s History” convey a sense of hopelessness and resignation. The opening lines, “reach point pointless, the cliff striped bare,” suggest that the singer has reached a dead end and has nothing left to hold onto. They go on to describe the futility of their efforts and the sense of isolation and disconnection they feel. The lines “happy lifeless flowers touch, no water left to nourish it” paint a picture of something once beautiful but now fading away. The singer acknowledges their mistakes, “to know what I’ve done to you” and regrets the time wasted, “to see life waste inches time.”
The chorus, “when I looked up to you, you looked down on me that’s nothing new, it’s history” depicts a relationship in which the singer is constantly belittled and dismissed. The repetition suggests an ongoing pattern, and the use of “it’s history” implies that this dynamic has been playing out for a long time and that nothing can be done to change it. The song ends with the lines “to hide all key or rented parting, lip shed skin retina, kin imbued tread showers all, broken across the crawling box,” which suggest a sense of fragmentation and dissolution. The singer seems resigned to their fate, as if there is nothing left to hold on to.
Line by Line Meaning
Reach point pointless
Feeling like you have reached a dead end
The cliff striped bare
A metaphor for a barren, bleak landscape
False of all that's becoming my own
Feeling like your identity is fake and not your own
A taste to open doors in space
The desire to break free from reality
Let it go, your disgrace
Let go of your shame and guilt
Happy lifeless flowers touch
Something that seems beautiful, but is actually dead
No water left to nourish it
An inability to grow or change
Dried elastic-plastic fuel
A metaphor for an empty or meaningless existence
To know what I've done to you
Regretting past actions and their impact on others
To see life waste inches time
The realization that life is fleeting
To think all feeling gray
Feeling numb or apathetic
The flood, the blood to drown within
Being overwhelmed or consumed by negative emotions
Forget it all again
Trying to escape from the pain of the past
The whistle snakes like, crafty fingers
A metaphor for how manipulative people can be
Letters switching left unread
Unanswered communication, feeling ignored or unimportant
Ripple life effect detected
The far-reaching impact of our actions
Whispers thinning out the back
People speaking behind your back or losing faith in you
Being lasting corpuscle
Feeling insignificant or powerless
Lifetimes the nervous ending
The inevitable end to our existence
Mantle dusted nerverosa
A feeling of being weighed down, suffocated
The fog that (puppet?) Dances whispering
A sense of confusion and being misled
Calling boxed in need of distance
Feeling trapped and needing space
People's place's and closing in (?)
Feeling suffocated by societal expectations
Magnet magnet manic in resistance
Feeling pulled in different directions, unable to move forward
The abstract vision feeding
Dreams and aspirations are what sustains us
Comatose star, speeding lances
A feeling of being lifeless and directionless
Boils that (bores in?) Deep besides the mind
Painful memories that haunt us
Filter falls on dark gray-matter
A filter of negativity clouds our thoughts
Filter feeding on the mind
Negativity consuming our thoughts
Falls on dark gray-matter
A sense of hopelessness and despair
Fascination in decline…
Losing interest in life, feeling jaded
Degraded fixed the solid pattern
Feeling stuck in a negative cycle that's hard to break
Motion drifted eyesore daze
Feeling like life is just passing you by
Let him alter, let it go, again…
Accepting change and moving forward
Wishes in the dirty glow
A feeling of wanting more, but settling for less
Let it alter, let it go
Embracing positive change and growth
To hide all key or rented parting
Hiding parts of yourself or feeling incomplete
Lip shed skin retina (?)
Feeling stripped of identity, exposed
Kin imbued tread showers all
Family and loved ones are what give life meaning
Broken across the crawling box.
Feeling trapped and powerless
When I looked up to you
Aspiring to be like someone, seeking guidance
You looked down on me that's nothing new
Feeling let down or judged by someone you admired
It's history…
Letting go of the past, accepting what has happened
Contributed by Nora P. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Night Mike
Incredible how they managed to make mellow music yet deceptive, that this track later gets a little crazy, proves they will never lose their edge whatsoever.
Michael Bernier
The Back and Forth 7 cd is so mint, all these unreleased tracks are so worth the purchase price! RIP Dwayne Goettel!!
Mushy
I'm happy someone transcribed the lyrics, it basically what I've transcribed myself. One of the best calm songs they've done, very much groove to it.
Ligea
Thanks for posting the lyrics, very helpful, it sounds fairly exact, but honestly who can really transcribe Ogre 100%, with his thick accent, it's pretty hard (though I think accents can be sexy if one can actually understand it. But, this song is fairly well understood. I listen to "puppy" all the time, most of it I can't understand without lyric sheets (perhaps I pick out a few words/phrases), but I'm from the American south, so I'm use to really weird accents that make little sense ha-ha.
Brian Kyllo
take some acid it will be easier tiny eyes
enochinthedark
RIP Duck. You will always be missed.
Niki Paea
Such greatness
MickVon6
Genius track ❤️
lacy patchell
This song is holding me through a ferry strange sad time......the world just wouldn't be the experience it is without SP. Always makes me not so alone
Jesus Raphael
The last B&F Series I purchased was B&F Series 3&4. I had no idea that SP continued the series. I actually, prefer them to some of their original releases. P.S. Love Duck.