“Dogs”, originally entitled “You’ve Gotta Be Crazy,” began as a sprawling jam that was turned into a multi-part suite about the sadness that occurs from trying to find your place in the world and getting stuck up in the race of the day to day life.

Thematically, the song connives people in life who are symbolized as dogs. “Dogs,” over 17 minutes in length, is one of the band’s longest uninterrupted songs; a tour de force that requires multiple listens to truly appreciate its majesty, following “Echoes” and “Atom Heart Mother”.

It has been suggested that the lyrics were in part inspired by the poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg, which describes a world corrupted by a love of money. There is a particular similarity in the repetition of lines beginning with “Who…?”. Waters, however, denies that this was his inspiration.