Lyrics to
Animal Language

This version of Animal Language was released by Lou Reed in 1974.

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Miss Riley had a dog
she used to keep it in her backyard
And when the dog began to bark
all the neighbors began to shout
Then came a stormy night
Miss Riley let her dog out
And when the neighbors found him ’round
they put a gun down his mouth and shot him down
and he went

Ooohhh-wow, bow-wow
Ooohhh-wow, bow-wow

Miss Murphy had a cat
on her lap it sat
And once in a great big while
it looked like that Cheshire cat did smile
But often it used to chase
anything that crossed its face
But one day it got so hot
that Cheshire cat had a blood clot
and she said

Ooohhh-meow, me-meow
Ooohhh-meow, me-meow

Meow

And then the dog met the cat
the dog was hot and the cat was wet
Then came some sweaty dude
he put a board between the two
Then they couldn’t get at it
got frustrated all about it
So they did the only thing you could do
they took the dude’s sweat and shot it up between the two
and they said

Ooohhh-wow, bow-wow
Ooohhh-wow, bow, me, wow

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Want more lyrics and songs by Lou Reed?

Lou Reed has released many songs over the years besides Animal Language. Lou Reed released songs from 1972 to 2000 spanning across albums like Transformer, Lou Reed, Berlin, Sally Can't Dance, Rock 'n' Roll Animal, Coney Island Baby, Rock And Roll Heart, Street Hassle, The Bells, Growing Up In Public, The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, New Sensations, Mistrial, New York, Magic And Loss, Set The Twilight Reeling, and Ecstasy. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Lou Reed.

If you're a fan of popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1974 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Animal Language by Lou Reed

When you decide to study the lyrics to Animal Language, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by Lou Reed. Some of the lyrics to Animal Language have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Lou Reed and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Animal Language if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Animal Language" means the words set to the music of Animal Language, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Lou Reed. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Animal Language and the lyrics to Animal Language are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Lou Reed who came here looking just for the lyrics to Animal Language, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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