How “War Pigs” Functions as Relevant Today

It is important to point out the power that this song has in its ability to translate across music genres and still spread important anti-war sentiments. Regardless of who was performing the song or whether they were a pop artist or even a rapper, the tangible, raw power of the song was clearly conveyed. Even after being arranged for another genre, the lyricism and underlying feeling of the Black Sabbath song were still hiding somewhere beneath the surface.

I found this cover by Yungblud, an english pop/punk singer-songwriter from a live BBC acoustic session, and it caught my attention because of the pure emotion that comes out when he sings, and because of the emphasis he puts on each word to get the word across even more successfully. I also really like that this is a live performance, because I don’t think it would be as real and raw if it had been mixed and mastered to a point of unrecognizability. The imperfections of his voice lend themselves to the feelings of frustration and essentially just a lot of angst, which is a common thread when discussing war, especially in the context of trying to get rid of it for peace.

T-Pain is known for his career in the rap and r&b genres, so this cover definitely caught me by surprise. What really intrigues me about this is the arrangement of the song chosen for T-Pain’s performance. It is well known that the first word that comes up when people think of T-Pain isn’t “heavy metal”, so the fact that the cover stays true to the genre that the song was originally performed in says a lot about the impact of the song, which is also dependent on the genre that is used as its vessel. T-Pain is able to hit a good amount of notes, even though the song is outside of his vocal range and genre entirely.

While they may not share a genre, Foo Fighters and Zac Brown Band performed an interesting collaborative cover of “War Pigs”, in which the same can be said regarding the impact of the performance of this song. The song translates well from rock and grunge to classic country, which says a lot about the timelessness of the song itself as well as its lyricism.