I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Well the church bells are calling
Police cars on fire
And as they call you to the eye of the storm
All the people say "Stay at home tonight"
I say we are the pigs we are the swine
We are the stars of the firing line
And as the smack cracks at your window
You wake up with a gun in your mouth
Oh let the nuclear wind blow away my sins
And I'll stay at home in my house
I say we are the pigs
We are the swine
We are the stars of the firing line
But deceit can't save you so
We will watch them burn
Police cars on fire
And as they call you to the eye of the storm
All the people say "Stay at home tonight"
I say we are the pigs we are the swine
We are the stars of the firing line
And as the smack cracks at your window
You wake up with a gun in your mouth
Oh let the nuclear wind blow away my sins
And I'll stay at home in my house
I say we are the pigs
We are the swine
We are the stars of the firing line
But deceit can't save you so
We will watch them burn
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its about us ruining the world and bringing us to apocalypse and yet apathetic, choosing to do nothing even though we have a gun in our mouths. we rather watching "them" burn. great song, of course.
I think it's about Western civilization and the complacency and apathy that Westerners embody ..."church bells"..."stay at home in my house"...it sort of reminds me of Nero while Rome burned.
ONE comment? One! Suede are so under-rated internationally. The guitar introduction is hauntingly beautiful, they've really done some amazing stuff.
Actually I'm pretty sure that "pigs" are a name for the police, and this is a song about the corrupt, hypocritical nature of authority.
"stars" as in how they feel superior, think they are doing the right thing. but they are only stars of the "firing line", meaning that they can and will kill people. Using violence to promote safety and peace.
Well that's my take on it.
The song seems to be about an armageddon, or an apocalypse, that will happen and it will be our fault.
"We Are The Pigs" refers to how the majority of society is willing to sit back and watch everything go to shit 'like cattle'. The song's almost wallowing in it's celebration of how irregularly people react against obvious wrongs unless it affects them directly.
Freakin' master piece of Suede's.
I believe this is the song that drove Bernard Butler to leave the band. He'd written a sweeping, epic and hauntingly beutiful record, gave it to Brett Anderson to write the lyrics, and he came up with "We Are The Pigs." Preposterous but strangely good record.
I've just been watching the video for this on YouTube. Did Brett Anderson ever read V For Vendetta before he wrote this? Does seem like it.
The horns were an interesting addition, it actually works on the track but I would've never imagined at the time.
today is 4 June, the students in Beijing 1989 were the stars in the firing line. I watched them burn and stayed home.