How 'Raving and Drooling' (1974) Differs from 'Sheep' on *Animals*

The 1974 French tour rehearsals, famously preserved in studio-quality bootlegs, capture “Raving and Drooling” as a raw, sprawling jam—still a year or two away from becoming the tightly coiled “Sheep” on Animals. The most obvious difference is lyrical: the early version is a first-person narrative of a man losing his grip, repeating “I’m raving and drooling” like a mantra, while the Animals rewrite flips to third-person satire of docile followers. Waters replaced the personal paranoia with political allegory—the sheep who “don’t need no bloody uniforms” and eventually turn on the dogs.

Arrangement-wise, “Raving and Drooling” is looser and more exploratory. The 1974 take runs over seven minutes with an extended instrumental middle section featuring Gilmour’s unpolished solo and a driving, repetitive bass line from Waters that feels almost hypnotic. The final Animals version tightens everything: the intro gets a cleaner bass-and-drums build, the vocal melody sharpens, and the famous “Psalm of the Lord” spoken-word passage (recited backward) is added as a climax. The 1974 version has no such twist