March of the Pigs
| "March of the Pigs" | |||||||||||
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US CD single cover
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| Single by Nine Inch Nails | |||||||||||
| from the album The Downward Spiral | |||||||||||
| B-side | "A Violet Fluid" | ||||||||||
| Released | February 25, 1994 | ||||||||||
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| Recorded | 1993 | ||||||||||
| Studio | Le Pig (Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles) | ||||||||||
| Genre | Industrial metal | ||||||||||
| Length | 2:58 | ||||||||||
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| Writer(s) | Trent Reznor | ||||||||||
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| Nine Inch Nails singles chronology | |||||||||||
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"March of the Pigs" is a song by American industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails from their second studio album, The Downward Spiral (1994). It was released on February 25, 1994 as the album's lead single.
"March of the Pigs" has an unusual meter, alternating three bars of 7/8 time with one bar of 8/8 time (in effect, a 29/8 time signature). According to the liner notes, the song has a BPM rate of 269. The song's high energy (analogous to a previous NIN track, "Wish"), segued by two piano breakdowns, has made it a staple of NIN's live concert performances. It is also one of the band's shortest hit songs, clocking in at just under three minutes.
After abandoning a more elaborate version before filming could be completed, Reznor and the live band assembled for the then-impending Self Destruct Tour (featuring drummer Chris Vrenna, keyboard player James Woolley, guitarist Robin Finck and bassist/guitarist/keyboardist Danny Lohner) regrouped with director Peter Christopherson to film a stripped-down, minimalist music video for the song. The video, released in March 1994, features the band performing the song live in front of a white wall backdrop, with Reznor moving around aggressively, pushing the other band members and their instruments, and repeatedly tossing his microphone away. Throughout the video, stagehands visibly move into the frame to reset the equipment he knocks over, handing Reznor a microphone each time he needs to start singing again after an instrumental section. The bulk of the video appears to be filmed in one long take, with the camera zooming and panning continuously. When Reznor appeared as a guest programmer on the ABC Rage TV program, he explained that they just kept playing the song over and over to the point of exhaustion to get the final take. The video uses the live performance audio of the song recorded at the video shoot, rather than synchronizing the footage to the studio-recorded version from the album as most music videos do. This version of the song is also included on the "Closer" cassette single.
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