Looking For Changes

“Looking For Changes” is a track from 1993 album “Off The Ground“. From songfacts:

This song is about cruel treatment of test animals used for science experiments. McCartney has been a vegetarian for nearly 40 years and a very active member of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). This song was inspired by a montage video McCartney saw of animals being treated cruelly in test labs.

A more abbreviated version appeared at the end of McCartney’s concerts in 1993. This shocked many fans and critics because the video was very gruesome and graphic. For his 1994 VHS release Off The Ground Tour 1993, he put the disturbing montage at the end of the tape. The tape even came with a disclaimer on the back warning people of disturbing images. McCartney later commented, “I showed this clip because people need to see the truth as disturbing as it may be. To me what’s more disturbing is people trying to pretend this isn’t happening.“

From Club Sandwich 65:

When Linda and I met we discovered that we’d both been nature lovers as kids, and still were. Then we became vegetarians, which makes you even more aware of animals and their rights, and makes you want to explain to other people how you feel about seeing animals being carted off to the slaughterhouse. Protest songs are quite hard to do. Love songs come easier, at least to someone like me, but in this case I’d been looking through magazines like The Animal’s Voice and Animal Agenda, pretty heavy magazines that show some of the experim entation that goes on in the name of cosmetics, and started to write the song after I saw a picture of a cat with a machine implanted in its head. They just took off the top of its skull and plugged in a machine to find some data. I’m not sure what they were expecting to find inside a cat’s head. So I started to write the song and came up with the line “I saw a cat -with a machine in his brain” and just made it up from there – how the bloke who fed him didn’t feel any pain so I’d like to see him take out the machine and stick it in his own brain. You know, if you need the information so badly, do it to yourself. 

The rest came quite easily. I had another couple of verses about rabbits and then used a bit of poetic licence about monkeys being taught to smoke. They normally use beagles for smoking experiments but it doesn’t matter -it’s still some poor defenceless animal with no rights in the world. Then I got the hook looking for changes, which sort of sums it up in my mind. It really is my feeling that we are all here on this little ball in the universe, humans are the dominant species and we tend to despise everything else. I think it’s “change or die” time for this planet. 

I don’t usually use swear words in a song because it can sometimes seem a bit gratuitous, like you’re just trying to shock, but then again I don’t normally go for songs about animal experiments and when you’re in that hard area these words start to creep in. I’m certainly not a great user of swear words in front of the kids but occasionally – like in ‘Looking For Changes’ – it’s essential to the plot. 

Paul McCartney

From the “New World Tour” tour book:

I thought I’d better try to write a protest song. And that’s not easy. I’ve shied away from it. Rock’n’roll’s much easier, the straight ahead thing like I’m Down way back. But I thought I’d try something more pointed. I looked at animal experiments and took three of them — using a bit of poetic licence, I’m not sure the lyrics are technically accurate.

The first verse is about a cat with a machine in its brain. The image comes from a photo I’d seen of a perfectly ordinary tabby cat with the top of its head removed and this piece of metal stuck in it for the purposes of some scientific experiment.

Then there’s rabbits with tears in their eyes — which is about those companies who are testing perfumes and cosmetics by dropping the stuff in animals’ eyes. When the animals go blind they say, Oh that’s enough, and draw their scientific conclusions. These Belsen/Auschwitz experiments on animals are going on in our name.

Then the final image is of a monkey smoking — I think it’s normally beagles the labs use, but that doesn’t matter. I thought at least I could play that one to me mates at PETA and they’d say, Right on, man. I mean, the worst thing is that animals can’t speak, they can’t say, I want a lawyer.

Paul McCartney

In 2019, the song was used by PETA to support its campaign against experimentation on animals ; and an animated video was produced. From PETA’s site:

To support PETA’s campaign against experimentation on animals, rock ‘n’ roll legend and longtime PETA supporter Paul McCartney has generously given us the rights to use his song “Looking for Changes,” which was inspired by this very issue decades ago. McCartney wants you to know that experiments on animals are cruel and pointless. […]

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“Looking For Changes” has been played in 67 concerts and 7 soundchecks.

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