Seamus: The Pink Floyd Dog Song, Explained

One afternoon in 1971, Pink Floyd realised the dog they were babysitting could howl in tune. So they did the only sensible thing: built a twelve-bar blues around him and let him sing lead. “Seamus” is the result, a Pink Floyd dog song tucked onto the album Meddle, and one of the strangest credits in rock history.

Who was Seamus?

Seamus was a German Shepherd who belonged to Steve Marriott, frontman of Humble Pie and the Small Faces. Marriott was touring the United States, so David Gilmour was dog-sitting while the band recorded. When they clocked that Seamus answered music with a tuneful howl, they cut a quick blues backing, Gilmour overdubbed the instruments and his own vocals, and the dog took the rest. Critics have spent fifty years calling it one of Pink Floyd’s worst songs, which rather misses the joke.

Mademoiselle Nobs: the live sequel

When the band filmed Live at Pompeii, they ran the bit again under a new name, “Mademoiselle Nobs.” This time the howler was a borrowed hound called Nobs, with keyboardist Richard Wright crouched beside her, coaxing the notes out. Same song, different dog, same gloriously silly idea.

Pink Floyd’s other dog: “Dogs”

Six years later, dogs returned to Pink Floyd, far less cuddly. “Dogs,” the seventeen-minute centrepiece of 1977’s Animals, uses the dog as a metaphor for the ruthless, claw-your-way-up businessman. No howling this time, just one of the band’s bleakest, most ambitious tracks. From a real dog singing the blues to the dog as a symbol of human greed: quite the range for one band.

Pink Floyd weren’t alone in their canine streak. Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens had their own dog stories, and Seamus earns a spot in our roundup of the best songs about dogs. If a howling German Shepherd just made your week, the shelters are full of singers waiting: please adopt, don’t shop.