My interpretation of Animal

otter

I sing along about a stray dog that "followed" me home in college "abducted from the street" . My flatmates were less than thrilled (their girlfriends dug it). He was very timid for a while and if you looked at him he would look away "so frightened of your face" but slowly with a lot of affection (mostly from me and the girls) he turned real sweet. 4 flatmates and a landlady were "1,2,3,4,5 against 1" But compared to them "I'd rather be...I'd rather be...I'd rather be with (that) animal".

F Me In The Brain

My 7 year nephew sings the chorus (loudly) as if he were his cat...replacing every word with MEOW. He is convinced that Animal is his cat's favorite song because....well, because he is an Animal.

He was disappointed to learn that they played his 2nd favorite song (Go) but not his favorite (Animal) on Sunday as I had to promise him I would sing the Chorus the way that he does if they played Animal.

lcusick

Actually, I thought the song was about a girl getting abducted from the streets and she is gang raped. The rapists are worse than any animal and the girl rather be with an animal. I may be wrong but that is what I heard the song is about.

otter

lcusick wrote:

Actually, I thought the song was about a girl getting abducted from the streets and she is gang raped. The rapists are worse than any animal and the girl rather be with an animal. I may be wrong but that is what I heard the song is about.

yuck...I like my version better.

Can't it just be about a stray dog? 5 who don't want the stray against the 1 poor dog?

I like thinking it is from the dog's point of view and not one more sad girl. "torture from you to me" "so frightened of your pain" there are some horrible people who are awful to dogs. And the person singing for the dog doesn't get it and they would much rather be with a pure animal.

I don't like to think about the gang rape thing...cause the song rocks and if I interpret it my way it makes it cooler in my mind.

Just some thoughts. Certainly I am probably wrong. But maybe if Eddie Vedder thinks about it maybe he'll think about the different interpretations?

Great song: I need to hear it...need to feel it loud yeah!

lcusick

I think it's cool to interpret it any way that you want, like most PJ songs. Just telling you what I read. And Eddie seems to always want to sing about social issues. But I have my own personal interpretations to most PJ songs. So rock on and turn Animal up!!!!

TheBeardedFellow

I always thought it was an anti-record industry song; how they'd rather be with an animal than those people. They were the 5 against the 1 industry...backed by pulling away from making videos or doing much press, yada yada yada...

But I like the stray dog interpretation!