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The Dogs of War (song)

"The Dogs of War"
Pink Floyd - "The Dogs of War".jpg
Single by Pink Floyd
from the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Released Early 1988 (Early 1988)
Format 7"
Recorded November – December 1986
Genre Blues rock
Length 6:11
Label CBS Records
Writer(s) David Gilmour, Anthony Moore
Pink Floyd singles chronology
"On the Turning Away"
(1987)
"The Dogs of War"
(1988)
"One Slip"
(1988)

"The Dogs of War" is a song by Pink Floyd from their 1987 album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason. It was the third single from the album in the US and Australia. Live versions have an extended intro, an extended middle solo for the saxophone, a guitar and sax duel and a longer outro as compared to the album version. The track was a minor rock radio hit in the US and reached #16 on MTV's Video Countdown in May 1988.

"The Dogs of War" describes politicians orchestrating wars, suggesting the major influence behind war is money.

Musically, the song follows a twelve-bar blues structure in C minor, only with significantly different chord changes. A standard blues song in C minor would progress as C minor, F minor, C minor, G (major or minor), F minor, and back to C minor. "The Dogs of War", instead, progresses in this way: C minor, E flat minor, C minor, A flat seventh, F minor, and back to C minor. All minor chords include the seventh.

Singer David Gilmour often approaches the C minor chord by singing on the diminished fifth, G flat, before descending to the fourth, minor third, and root. This melody is also compatible with the next chord, E flat minor, in which G flat is the minor third. It also appears in the A flat seventh chord, as the dominant seventh.

The majority of the song is in a slow 12/8 time. After a bluesy guitar solo, the song switches to a fast 4/4 tempo for the saxophone solo. This is not unlike what happens in "Money", a minor-key blues-based song from The Dark Side of the Moon, in which a saxophone solos over the song's predominant 7/4 tempo before switching to a faster 4/4 tempo for the guitar solo. "The Dogs of War" also imitates "Money" in its ending sequence, with a "call and response" between Gilmour's voice and his guitar.


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