Pink Floyd Animals Songbook
Publisher: Amsco Publications (1977)
Paperback: 88 pages
Arrangement: Piano, Vocal and Guitar
ISBN-10: 0711910308
ISBN-13: 9780711910300
Availability: Rare and Out-of-Print

Condition: Like New
The ‘Pink Floyd Animals Songbook’ is in like new condition. There is no visible wear to the front, reverse covers and no wear or very slight to the spine (see photos 1-6). The binding is strong and tight and there is no highlighting, underlining or annotations on any of the pages, which are clean, bright, glossy and crisp (see photo 7 as an example). There are no missing, loose or torn pages.

Description:
The ‘Pink Floyd Animals Songbook’ contains a piano, vocal and guitar arrangement for all five songs from the English progressive rock group’s tenth studio album ‘Animals’, released in January 1977.

Issued four years after Floyd’s epic The Dark Side of the Moon and two years after its emotional follow-up and tribute to Syd Barrett, Wish You Were Here, ‘Animals’ marked a considerable change in direction for the band. Born out of the social and political tensions and divisions of the 1970s, the album allegorically and darkly explores various aspects of Britain’s class structure, represented on the album as either ruthless pigs, predatory dogs or meek unquestioning sheep. This is one of the reasons why the album is usually referred to in the context of George Orwell’s equally allegorical Animal Farm.

The album contains some of the best work by David Gilmour and Richard Wright. Gilmour’s significant contribution on the song ‘Dogs’, both in terms its vocal performance and guitar work, is particularly impressive given its raw and explosive energy which complements the song’s lyrics, subject matter and themes. In the same way the subtlety and darkness of Wright’s synthesiser work on ‘Sheep’ both lyrically and melodically articulates the album’s broader social commentary. The song ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones)’ takes us in more bluesy direction before concluding with the hopeful aspiration of ‘Pigs on the Wing’, Part 1 and Part 2 of which book-end the album.

The ‘Pink Floyd Animals Songbook’ is divided into three sections: ‘The Event’, ‘The Music’ and ‘The Rehearsal’ (see photos 8-10).

‘The Event’ part of the book contains fifteen photographs both in colour and black and white. This section includes two pages of pressing cuttings relating to the creation of the album’s iconic art work.

‘The Music’ section contains all five songs from the album: ‘Pigs on the Wing (Part One)’, ‘Dogs’, ‘Pigs (Three Different Ones)’, ‘Sheep’ and ‘Pigs on the Wing (Part Two)’ arranged for piano, vocal and guitar. The guitar and vocal parts also include guitar chord diagrams and the lyrics for each song. (see photo 11 as an example of this). The songbook’s third and final section ‘The Rehearsal’ contains fourteen black and white photographs plus three pages which provide details about Pink Floyd’s stage setup including an ‘Equipment and Technical Rider’.

The songbook was designed by Hipgnosis/Holyhead and the illustrations and graphics used throughout, are by Holyhead NTA.