The Band Explains: Sleep Patterns - 'Hungry for the Holy Cow’
Sleep Patterns talk to us about the deeper meaning behind their colourful visuals for eerie, psych infused indie single, ‘Hungry for the Holy Cow’.
“The lyrics are fairly abstract but I aimed the subject of the song towards the idea of a kind of spiritual vacuum created by life in a capitalist society - hence the biblical references, and references to Hinduism- the abuse of nature and lack of imaginative exuberance which comes from a way of life fuelled by industry and economic growth, and how this is a kind of madness. The cow is sacred in India, amongst other cultures and traditions, but I think we’re all painfully aware that cattle are being overfarmed, to their own detriment as well as to the detriment of the environment, so I tried to point out the contrast between thinking of the cow as a commodity, and as a sacred animal. I had the idea of a white, clinical, industrial scene exploding into colour, bringing to mind the Indian Holi. This is where the idea for the boiler suits came from. At The Edge there were a load of cool little objects and stuff which we thought were aesthetically pleasing, and by lucky chance this included a cow’s skull, and so we decided to include all that. Both the song and video are fairly abstract in meaning and I’d be happy for people to draw their own conclusions if they feel the video is worth dedicating any time at all to thinking about, that’s the beauty of symbolism rather than explicit meaning. But equally if it just kills 3-4 minutes by way of a pleasant distraction then we’ve probably accomplished all we can ask of ourselves as entertainers.”.