"Swine" is a song by American singer Lady Gaga, recorded for her third studio album, Artpop (2013). It was written and produced by Gaga, Paul "DJ White Shadow" Blair, Dino Zisis, and Nick Monson. A dubstep and industrial track, "Swine" was inspired by the singer's sexual experiences and the rage she felt from being raped when she was 19 by an unidentified record producer. Throughout the song, Gaga screams out the lyrics, which talk about denouncing a suitor by comparing them to a pig.
"Swine" was critically appreciated for its harsh composition and craziness. It debuted at number 94 on the Gaon International Digital Chart in South Korea, selling 2,430 copies. In the United States, "Swine" reached a peak position of number 23 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Gaga performed the song during her iTunes Festival show, the ArtRave: The Artpop Ball tour (2014) and at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, Texas. The latter performance received criticism for promoting bulimia when artist Millie Brown vomited paint on Gaga onstage. "Swine" was featured in the 2015 documentary The Hunting Ground, along with Gaga's "Til It Happens to You" (2015), which focuses on rape at American universities.
Background and writing
Development of Gaga's third studio album, Artpop, began shortly after the 2011 release of her second record, Born This Way. By the following year, the album's concepts were "beginning to flourish" as Gaga collaborated with producers Fernando Garibay and DJ White Shadow. One of the songs on Artpop was "Swine", which the singer explained was personal, and dealt with challenging and troubling sexual experiences she had encountered in her life.
In December 2014, Gaga revealed on The Howard Stern Show that she was raped at age 19 by a producer twenty years older than her. During her conversation with Stern, the singer recalled, "I went through some horrific things. I'm able to laugh now because I've gone through a lot of mental, physical and emotional therapy [...] I wasn't even willing to admit that anything had even happened [...] I saw him one time in a store, and I was paralyzed by fear." She confirmed that the incident further inspired "Swine", saying, "I wrote a song called 'Swine'; the song is about rape. The song is about demoralization. The song is about rage and fury and passion, and I had a lot of pain that I wanted to release."
Recording and composition
Musically, "Swine" is a dubstep and industrial song. Based on the "teaser" of Gaga rehearsing for the iTunes Festival, Entertainment Weeklys Nick Catucci described "Swine" as a "real shocker with Nine Inch Nails lyrics and bull-in-a-bong-shop Deep Purple groove." Consequence of Sound noted the creation of the Twitter hashtag #swinefest, and called the song a "melancholy piano ballad that eventually erupts into a raging pop-rocker, backed by piercing guitar and synths."
Gil Kaufman of MTV News described the track as a "rock-heavy" song. Bradley Stern saw the music as "several hair-raising, teeth-gritting, heart-stopping acid techno-laced beat drops." According to Musicnotes.com, the song is set in the time signature of common time with a fast tempo of 120 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of G minor, with Gaga's harsh vocals ranging from G3 to D5. The song has a basic sequence of C/G–Gm–C/G–Gm as its chord progression.
Lyrically, the recording denounces a suitor by comparing them to a pig. Gaga wanted to lessen the harshness of the lyrics developed for the track by making it sound more lighthearted. However, she ended up "screaming and squealing throughout the track." The dance nature of the song vanishes when the chorus is reached, with Gaga belting the lyrics backed by the "chaotic" synths shouting, "You're just a pig inside a human body / Squealer, squealer, squealer, you're so disgusting / You're just a pig inside", finally uttering the word "Swine" continuously as the groove "thrashed".