Was Roger Waters’ fingerpicking on ‘Pigs on the Wing’ directly inspired by John Fahey or Bert Jansch?

It’s a tempting connection — the spare, open-tuned fingerpicking on both parts of “Pigs on the Wing” has that same unhurried, American primitive feel that John Fahey perfected in the 1960s, and Bert Jansch brought to British folk. But Roger Waters has never named either player as a direct influence for that song. He wrote it on a simple repeated pattern, mostly in D major, using a thumb-and-index finger technique he’d picked up from general folk guitar playing, not a specific school.

Waters was listening to a lot of acoustic blues and English folk during the Animals sessions — he’s mentioned Bert Jansch’s name in passing for other things, but for “Pigs on the Wing” the inspiration seems to have been more internal. He wanted a song that stood apart from the album’s synth-and-guitar wall, something he could perform alone. The fingerpicking came from necessity, not a Fahey record. It’s closer to the simple, hypnotic patterns of early 70s singer-songwriters than the intricate rags of the Takoma label. Still, if you’ve heard “Sunflower River Blues,” the similarity is uncanny — but it’s a case of parallel evolution, not direct theft.