Just Like Animals
Folk singer and long-time collaborator, Chris Foster, staged a show with Chris Cheek in the 1990s called "A Sting in the Tale", with unloved animals as its central theme. The show was more than just a performance of songs, involving also sets and props, and for the music, he commissioned two new songs from Leon (this and "All That is Different is Part of the Dance"). When Foster later released a tape recording based on the show, nether of these songs were included, however, making their appearance on Leon's Intruders their first proper release. (Foster's tape did include versions of Leon's animal-related songs, "The Neighbour's Cat", "Flying High, Flying Free" and "Wo Sind Die Elephanten?".)
"Just Like Animals" is in fact about people - apparently developed from remarks made by a taxi driver who expressed a wish to bury a road protest group alive. Without its context, the song would stand out as the polar opposite of what one would expect to find on a Leon album, castigating those not working, painting them as vermin and wishing them to be wiped out. Only by understanding that this is the character speaking, do we see the point.
"Just Like Animals" is in fact about people - apparently developed from remarks made by a taxi driver who expressed a wish to bury a road protest group alive. Without its context, the song would stand out as the polar opposite of what one would expect to find on a Leon album, castigating those not working, painting them as vermin and wishing them to be wiped out. Only by understanding that this is the character speaking, do we see the point.
"The taxi driver observing the Dongas protesting against the building of a road through Twyford Down was in no doubt: 'They are nothing but dirty winos. If I had my way I would dig a trench, put them all in it and cover them up.'" - LR (sleevenotes to Intruders, 1995)
"The protagonists of 'Intruders' and 'Just Like Animals', people who have a different culture and different beliefs are 'other', a threat, less than human. 'Just Like Animals' was written for Chris Foster's show A Sting in the Tale." - LR (Turning Silence Into Song (songbook), p25)
"The protagonists of 'Intruders' and 'Just Like Animals', people who have a different culture and different beliefs are 'other', a threat, less than human. 'Just Like Animals' was written for Chris Foster's show A Sting in the Tale." - LR (Turning Silence Into Song (songbook), p25)