March of the Pigs

Tracklist:

1. march of the pigs
2. reptilian
3. all the pigs, all lined up
4. a violet fluid
5. underneath the skin

Fourth song on Nine Inch Nails' album The Downward Spiral and released as a single a few weeks prior (halo seven). Truffle's write up above covers the tracklist for the US and Australian version of the release (put out on Nothing/Interscope records). In the UK, the single for "March of the Pigs" was released as a two CD set (each disc sold separately) by Island Records.

disc one track listing:

1. March of the Pigs (clean version) (2:54)
2. All the Pigs, All Lined Up (7:25)
3. A Violet Fluid (1:03)
4. Big Man with a Gun (1:36)

disc two track listing:

1. March of the Pigs (LP version) (2:54)
2. Underneath the Skin (7:14)
3. Reptilian (8:39)

The music video for "March of the Pigs" consists of the live band at the time (Trent Reznor on vocals, Robin Finck on guitar, Danny Lohner on bass, Chris Vrenna on drums, and James Woolly on keyboard) playing the song in a studio with a bright white background set up behind them. The band actually performs the song, rather than just mock playing and lip-syncing along to the album version. As the band plays, Trent Reznor runs and leaps around the set while singing and colliding/pushing/grabbing onto his bandmates. Prior to starting the song, Trent Reznor says "Start the tape. Somebody." The video can be found on the Nine Inch Nails double VHS release Closure.

This was not the original plan for the video but after two days of filming, whatever the other idea was; it was scrapped by Trent Reznor and this video was produced. According to the Official Unofficial NIN FAQ, a cameraman who worked on the original video has this to say: "We shot it in two days around the end of January 1994. The thing was, I don't think we shot everything we were supposed to...you see, there was supposed to be a third day of production...never happened! What we did shoot was stuff with the entire band (not just Trent) in various 'dark' situations. Essentially trashing instruments and other items along the way. We did a lot of 'dutch' angles, a lot of fast-paced stuff...all in all, to me, it seemed like an angry, aggressive, Evil Dead II meets Hellraiser mini-movie...a lot of hanging chains and always a watered-down set..."*

Production Information:
Director: Peter Christopherson
Producer: Scott Shapiro
Cameraman: Dick Buckley
Editor: Philip Richardson

*I'm not sure how particularly trustworthy this information is. Though it is included in the NIN FAQ, the FAQ (which is maintained by fans, not NIN) doesn't state the cameraman's name or where the quote came from. Take the quote with a grain of salt, if you like. A little sodium never hurt anyone. I only include the quote here because I recall mention of another video not being completed in an interview with Reznor, which lends some credibility to what's described in the quote.

Interesting musical note: The time signature of March of the Pigs follows the pattern of having three measures of 7/8, followed by one measure of 8/8. There's one additional eighth note in there. Trent is the only musician I've known that's mananged to make this type of thing sounds as good as it does.