NIN Oeuvre Blog: March of the Pigs

Editor’s Note: This entry originally appeared on the blog Ten Thousand Lies on June 3, 2007.

There is something missing from the studio version of “March of the Pigs”. Having heard so many live renditions of it, I am always saddened to remember, upon listening to the original studio version, that there is no instrumental outro after the second “Now doesn’t that make you feel better?”. In every live version I’ve ever heard, there is this amazing outro that comes in just after the final piano notes fade away, an outro featuring all the musical explosiveness of the verses, along with the single, repeated lyric, “All the pigs are all lined up.” And though I love the studio version very much, I can’t help but wonder how much more amazing it would be if that last bit were included.

I remember the first time I heard that outro live*. During my first NIN show, in January of 1995 (also my first concert ever), they launched into “Pigs” pretty early on. It was the second or third song in the set, I believe. And it was right around then that the crowds to the right of us, who were rushing the floor in an attempt to get past security by sheer force and join that sea of a mosh-pit below, ended up breaking the metal staircase. The railings on one or both sides buckled (I can’t remember if it was both), trapping two rather thin friends on the bottom (they both made it out, eventually). Trent was goading the crowd to “Step right up,” to march, and to push, and that’s what they were doing. And then, with the staircase now blocked by a groaning mass of aching humanity, they were jumping over our heads (we were seated in the level just above the floor, but it was at least a ten-foot drop). The railing in front of us became unstable, and security moved us back a few rows while they fixed it. “Pigs” segged into something else, and eventually we got back to our seats.

In “Last" post, I wrote that the music of Nine Inch Nails is nothing if not participatory. “March of the Pigs” is the perfect example of that, and no NIN song before or since comes as close to making the audience feel as if they are a vital part of the song than this one. And that’s the other thing that’s missing from the studio version of this song: listening to it by yourself, be it on a car stereo, on your home stereo, or on some portable music device—that experience is never going to come close to the experience you’ll have when hearing it live.

*I’m not counting the time I heard it live during the broadcast of Woodstock ‘94, because that’s not really live now, is it? It was live for the people there, but I was just watching it on TV. Anyway, that aside, I will admit that I love the ad-lib in the final line before the outro: “Now all of you miserable, muddy fuckheads are alright.”