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A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard one day
My father got his gun, shot it up, they ran away OK
A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard
And as my own dog ran away with them, I didn't say much of anything at all
A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard
As my little sister played, the dogs took her away
And I guess she was eaten up OK, yeah she was eaten up OK
My mother cryin' blood dust now
My dad he quit his job today, well I guess he was fired but that? OK
And I sittin' outside my mud lake, waiting for the pack to take me away
And right after I die the dogs start floating up towards the glowing sky
Now they?l receive their rewards, now they will receive their rewards
My father got his gun, shot it up, they ran away OK
A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard
And as my own dog ran away with them, I didn't say much of anything at all
A wild pack of family dogs came runnin' through the yard
As my little sister played, the dogs took her away
And I guess she was eaten up OK, yeah she was eaten up OK
My mother cryin' blood dust now
My dad he quit his job today, well I guess he was fired but that? OK
And I sittin' outside my mud lake, waiting for the pack to take me away
And right after I die the dogs start floating up towards the glowing sky
Now they?l receive their rewards, now they will receive their rewards
Lyrics submitted by nuke_troop
Track duration: 01:44
"Wild Packs of Family Dogs" as written by Brock
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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So "a wild pack of family dogs," the metaphor:
Dogs of course were taken from the wild (willingly) and domesticated, or civilized, by man. They became docile and peaceful companions, yet when these civilized animals are thrown out into the wild once more (i.e. natural disaster), they become more savage than the wolves they were before. They do not simply kill what they need to survive, but anything they want. This is representative of human kind - as civilized as we sometimes are, when we enter a "mob mentality," we become the most evil beings ever to walk the Earth.
With that out of the way, I'd like to talk to you about Jesus Christ (I'm going to call him J from now on). So I don't think the song is exactly 100% coherent to his life (I have no idea what his sister is supposed to represent here, maybe innocence? Pandora?) but there's a few major things that line up. First off, his father. He scared the dogs off in the beginning by shooting his gun up in the air, (a nod I suppose to God in the old testament, or perhaps some point in J's life) but later when the daughter was killed and J's mother was "cryin' blood dust," he was fired from his job (Isaac tends to believe that if God is all-powerful, he must be an asshole or just bad at his job). J then proceeds to go wait out by the mud lake for the dogs to take him away (crucify him - mob mentality) and then proceeds to watch as the dogs float up into the glowing sky and receive their reward.
So basically, this song is a tie-in between Isaac's religious fun-poking and the ideas he later expressed in We Were Dead that humanity was better off (or at least just better) in the cave.
Perhaps Isaac Brock really did think deeply about this and made this song. Great song!
My take on it:
They are wild packs of family dogs; domesticated beasts that abandoned their owners and rejoined nature. They are agents of nature without willpower of their own; we have characterized natural processes (like death) but in the end we know they have no sense or volition, just selfless impulse. When the narrator's dog joins the pack, we are reminded that we cannot crystallize nature, life or time; nothing can remain as it is, and we cannot keep nature for ourselves. The dogs can be warded off when you are young and hopeful, but then they take the narrator's sister. The narrator's father no longer has the will to fight, and the imagery shifts over to sterility and decay (blood dust, the dried-up mudlake). Entropy, God, fate, or simply time; however you call it, this idyllic lifestyle of the typical family at the edge of the wilderness (darkness, uncertainty, the future) cannot last. The narrator is aware of this and has resigned to the work of nature, which is ultimately the hand of this superior entity, whose intentions (if it has any) we do not know. The dogs, as innocent manifestations of this overpowering force, return to their master for their reward, as they have done their job. Like in other songs from the album, like "3rd Planet", the narrator is perfectly aware of this reality; he knows how the Universe works, and he does not raise a hand to oppose it.
I think the "rewards" are stated in the song.
The "dogs" do bad and good things happen to them.
Seeing that makes you want to give up.
But that would be their reward...
The think dog's rewards are stated in the storie too.
The dogs do bad and get good things.
Seeing that makes you want to give up.
the religious angle makes alotta sense as well. I'm sure that whoever or whatever the dogs are, they see themselves as above anyone else. the last line doesn't seem to me to be saying that they ARE going to be rewarded, but rather a tounge in cheek bit implying that they think they are going to be rewarded.