Music / Swans

Swans' 2012 lineup. Michael Gira is in the cowboy hat.

"Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments."

— Michael Gira

Swans is a rather diverse No Wave, Noise Rock, Post-Punk, and lately Post-Rock band from New York City. The band was initially formed in 1982 and ran until 1997 with various lineups, and was reformed in 2010. Throughout its history, leader Michael Gira has been the band's only constant member, although Jarboe, who was with the band from 1984-97, and Norman Westberg, whose tenure spans 1983-95 and 2010-present, are notable for their long tenures.

The only uniform traits that you could get from their music, if you will, is that the song structures often focus on repetition, instrumentally and/or lyrically, but that they still manage to not get tiresome because of the chaotic nature of their work. This is especially apparent on their earliest work.

For most of their existence they have been primarily an underground act (although they have finally seen a bit of mainstream success, or at least Mainstream Obscurity, with their reunion) and the one song that the public (might) know best would be their cover of Joy Division's signature song "Love Will Tear Us Apart." They've also released two other singles, 13 studio albums, 9 live albums, 7 compilation albums, 11 EPs, and have made four music videos, but these aren't exactly well known.

They got their start with a self-titled EP in 1982, followed by their LP debut Filth in 1983. The latter is known for its harsh noise rock and industrial influences. Once Jarboe joined the band, Swans slowly moved away from the brutal aggression of Filth and the 1984 releases of Cop and Young God, opting for slightly softer (but just as insane) music, beginning subtly with the 1985 Time is Money 12", continuing with the "money" albums (Greed and Holy Money, 1986) and culminating with Children of God in 1987.

Following Children of God, Gira stated that he was tired of Swans being affiliated with the brutal noise of the first four LPs and also felt that the audience had expectations that he probably wouldn't fulfill. Beginning with The Burning World and going on into the '90s, Jarboe began to have an even bigger role in the band and softer elements, including classical instrumentation and, in later years, vibraphone.

When "Love Will Tear Us Apart" became a surprise hit on US college radio, MCA's sublabel Uni Records offered Swans a record deal. Gira described it as this:

"I've worked so hard all my life. At 15, I was digging ditches in the deserts of Israel, and I put myself through college painting houses. I never saw any money from any of our records. So by the time I finally got that carrot dangled in front of me, it was like, at last I can make a living at what I love to do."

They took the offer and released The Burning World in 1989. Unfortunately, troubles with Uni/MCA led to the band leaving the label and starting their own company, Young God Records. Their first Young God release was 1991's White Light from the Mouth of Infinity.

Later on down the line came Love of Life, the EP/single Love of Life / Amnesia, and 1995's The Great Annihilator, possibly their most accessible album. Eventually, though, Gira decided to break up the band, citing exhaustion, audience misconceptions, and a desire to start over and work on a smaller scale. They released an epic double-album (one of the most highly regarded albums of their career) Soundtracks for the Blind and went on a world tour, which were showcased on the live album Swans Are Dead as a testament to their last years together. Jarboe moved on to a successful solo career, while Gira started a more folk influenced band Angels of Light.

In January 2010, their MySpace page was changed to display "SWANS ARE NOT DEAD," and Gira released a solo album on Young God, entitled I Am Not Insane, to raise money to record the new Swans album. In September of 2010, this was realized with the release of My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. Another reunion album, The Seer, followed in August 2012, to virtually universal acclaim. It also expanded their audience substantially. The band's third reunion album, To Be Kind, came in May 2014; like The Seer, it is a double-disc set containing around two hours of music, and like The Seer, it has been highly acclaimed. It also climbed up to number 37 on the the Billboard 200. The absence of Jarboe (although she does make guest appearances on two songs on The Seer) has altered their sound to an arguably less melodic style.

The band's fourteenth studio album, The Glowing Man, was released on June 17, 2016. Gira followed it up by announcing that the current version of the group is coming to an end, but he will continue to make music under the name Swans, working with a revolving cast of musicians he feels are appropriate for each project.

You can now vote for your favourite Swans album by heading over to the Best Album crowner.

The current lineup is as follows:

• Michael Gira - guitar, vocals
• Christoph Hahn – guitar
• Chris Pravdica – bass guitar
• Phil Puleo – drums, percussion, dulcimer
• Norman Westberg – guitar
• Paul Wallfisch - keyboard

In 2018, music writer Nick Soulsby published Swans: Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History, which tells the band's story through extensive interviews with Gira, current and former members, and almost everyone who's ever been associated with the group.

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Discography

Discography (Full-length albums in bold, EPs, Live Albums and Compilations in italic)

• Swans (EP, 1982) - Where it all started. Heavily rooted in the no-wave scene, with use of saxophone and relatively less brutality than their other early albums. Still remains an intense listen, though, showing the early stages of the style they would become known for.
• Filth (1983) - The first full-length. Still rooted in no-wave, but takes heavy influence from noise-rock and industrial music, and very well could be considered an Ur-Example for grindcore. (For the record, Mick Harris, a drummer for Napalm Death, was describing the sound of Swans to a friend in 1984 and used the term "grind;" therefore, Swans could also be credited for inspiring the term "grindcore.")
• Cop (1984) - Takes the style of Filth and intensifies it. Utilizes slower tempos, more tape loops, and even more abrasive musical textures. Considered the darkest studio album both lyrically and musically.
• Young God (EP, 1984) - Another contender for the most brutal release, taking the sound of Filth and Cop in a more experimental direction. Notably, Kurt Cobain put it as number 50 in his top 50 albums in his journal.
• Time Is Money (Bastard) (Single, 1986) - Notably the first appearance of Jarboe, who was a member of the band from this release until Soundtracks for the Blind, making her the member to have been in the band the longest after Michael Gira. Marks a turning point in the band's sound, moving away from slow churning noise-rock and into a more minimal industrial sound.
• Greed (1986) - Continues to shift away from the brutal noise-rock of the first 3 releases. Certain tracks utilize drum machines. "Fool" uses a grand piano, while "Money is Flesh" uses a synthesizer. Maynard James Keenan of Tool has cited this album as a major influence.
• Holy Money (1986) - A sort-of sequel to Greed. It was recorded in the same sessions, so it figures.
• A Screw (EP, 1986) - Sees the band delve the furthest into industrial dance music than they ever have. The title track was the first track they recorded for the Greed/Holy Money sessions, while "Blackmail" was the first track to feature Jarboe on lead vocals.
• Public Castration is a Good Idea (Live, 1986) - The first live album, recorded during the tours for the previous 4 releases. Considered the most brutal Swans release period. Most tracks have been extended to twice their original length, and made even more abrasive. Quite an accurate reflection of the title though.
• Children of God (1987) - Marks an even more drastic change in direction than Greed and Holy Money, and uses acoustic guitars and more melodic vocals. One of their more accessible releases.
• Love Will Tear Us Apart (EP, 1988) - Contains a Lighter and Softer Cover Version of Joy Division's Signature Song "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and two Unplugged Versions of songs from Children of God. Got them noticed by a Universal, who signed them to Uni Records.
• Feel Good Now (Live, 1988, recorded 1987) - The second live album, recorded during the Children of God Tour.
• The Burning World (1989) - The first and only studio album released on Uni. While it features more accessible pop melodies, many of the lyrics continue to deal with depression, death, greed and despair, but with some rays of hope added. Also, Gira begins to sing on a regular basis, as opposed to chanting or shouting the lyrics; his baritone vocals bring to mind a more urbane Johnny Cash.
• Anonymous Bodies in an Empty Room (Live, 1990, recorded 1988-89) - Live album recorded during the Burning World tour.
• White Light from the Mouth of Infinity (1991) - Their first release on their own record label, Young God, which combined the earlier hard rock influences and the later pop melodies, mixed with Progressive Rock influences, making for a rather complex record in comparison to earlier work. Imagine Leonard Cohen singing lead on In the Court of the Crimson King, and you'll start to get the idea.
• Body to Body, Job to Job (1991, recorded 1982-85) - Series of recordings made during the pre-Time Is Money period. Some are live, some are studio, and some are tape loops.
• Love of Life (1992) - Sort of a companion to White Light, due to similar cover designs and both of them having been in the same situation up until 2015.
• Omniscience (Live, 1992) - Live album recorded during the 1992 world tour. Now out of print.
• Kill the Child (Live, 1995, recorded 1985-87) - Another brutal live album, this release takes 8 live versions of Children of God tracks and masters them as a single track to recreate the concert experience.
• The Great Annihilator (1995) - Described as Gira as a companion to his solo album Drainland. This is definitely Swans at their most accessible, for better or for worse. Also likely the band's only full fledged goth album.
• Die Tür ist zu (The Door Is Closed) (EP, 1996) - An interesting release. A German exclusive EP, containing a 22 minute composition containing German versions of "The Beautiful Days", "I Love You This Much", and "Helpless Child" from the next album combined to make a single track called "Ligeti's Breath/Hiflos Kind", a radio performance, two live performances, and 2 more German versions of songs from the next album. Sort of a precursor for things to come.
• Soundtracks for the Blind (1996) - Considered to be their magnum opus. It's also very long, clocking in at around 2 hours and 21 minutes spread across 2 CDs. While it's usually classified as post-rock, it's very much more, containing audio collages, hardcore punk tracks, and even an EDM track. Gira has said that it contains material from Swans' whole career, dating back to 1981. Outside of a live album and two compilations, this was Swans' last studio release until 2010.
• Swans Are Dead (Live, 1998, recorded 1995 and 1997) - Live album recorded during the Great Annihilator and Soundtracks Tours. Considered their best live album.
• Various Failures (Compilation, 1999) - Contains material from 1988-1982, from various studio albums and singles.
• Forever Burned (Reissue, 2003) - Reissue of The Burning World with tracks from White Light, Love of Life, and Love Will Tear Us Apart as bonus tracks.
• My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky (2010) - First album after the reformation, funded by Gira's solo album I Am Not Insane. Sort of a bridge between Soundtracks and Gira's side project Angels of Light.
• We Rose from Your Bed with the Sun in Our Head (Live, 2012, recorded 2011) - Live album used to fund The Seer. Limited to 1,000 copies.
• The Seer (2012) - The first album in an informal trilogy of epic full-lengths. Clocking in at 1:59:13, it's one of the band's longest albums and also one of their darkest. Its sound can best be described as a mixture of post-rock, drone, folk, and noise. Collaborators include Alan and Mimi Sparhawk, Karen O, Ben Frost, and Jarboe in her only appearance post-reformation. Met with critical acclaim.
• Not Here/Not Now (Live, 2013) - Live album used to fund To Be Kind. Limited to 1,000 copies.
• To Be Kind (2014) - A more heavy, riff-driven post-rock album. Their most commercially successful album to date, peaking at number 37 on the Billboard 200. Notable collaborators include John Congleton, Julia Kent, Little Annie, Al Spx, and St. Vincent.
• Oxygen (EP, 2014) - An EP containing 4 versions of the song "Oxygen" from To Be Kind. Despite this, it still is considered to be a worthy release.
• The Gate (Live, 2015) - A live album used to fund The Glowing Man. Limited to 1,000 copies. Notably, each copy has a unique cover drawn by the band,
• The Glowing Man (2016) - The final installment in the informal trilogy started by The Seer. Features a more meditative, ethereal sound than its immediate predecessor while also making the tracks even longer, with 8 songs adding up to just under 2 hours of music. Gira has described it as "the musical equivalent of Ben-Hur". Notable guests include Okkyung Lee and Michael Gira's wife Jennifer.
• Deliquescence (Live, 2017) - Limited edition live album. Notably, it's the longest release by the band to date, at 155 minutes.
• What Is This? (2019) - Another fundraiser album. Unlike the the other 2, however, this is a full-length studio album. Mostly acoustic.
• Leaving Meaning (2019) - The 15th studio album. Shorter and lighter than its predecessors (at a scant 93 minutes), it shows more of a folky, spiritual tone akin to Gira's work with the Angels of Light. Notable guests include Anna and Maria von Hausswolf, Ben Frost, Jennifer Gira, and every member of Australian jazz group The Necks.
• Is There Really a Mind? (2022) - Another fundraiser for the next Swans release, comprised of demos of each track by Gira.
• The Beggar (2023) - Picks right up where Leaving Meaning left off, only this time with a scaled-down band and a focus on atmospheric, drone-based compositions, whilst its tracklist marks a return to the lengthy 2 hour format.

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The band exemplifies the following tropes:

• Album Title Drop: The Burning World in "Mona Lisa, Mother Earth"
  "We'll walk a burning world where the sun shines darkness"
• The Alcoholic: Michael Gira is one (currently in recovery), and wrote "Blind" and "Alcohol the Seed" about it.
• Anti-Love Song: "Blackmail" is a particularly subtle and creepy example.
• The Anti-Nihilist: While often considered rather bleak and hopeless, Gira has actually refuted the notion that they're only about depression and humankind's failings, with many songs that have some measure of hope despite the majority of their lyrics going into considerable detail about how uncaring and obsessive the world ultimately is.
• Big Applesauce: They hail from NYC and still look to it as a big part of their identity.
• Body Motifs: Skin and flesh are mentioned a lot throughout their lyrics.
• Boléro Effect: They frequently make use of crescendos, especially in their later work. They're probably at least partially responsible for the prevalance of this in Post-Rock.
• Careful with That Axe: On occasion. "Hypogirl" opens with a unique example of this.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Michael Gira often comes across as one.
• Cluster F-Bomb: The last half of "She Loves Us!" from To Be Kind.
  • "The Apostate" is another good example.
• Cover Version: A handful, notably Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home."
  • Gira and Jarboe's side project (The World of) Skin did a few more, such as Julie London's "Cry Me a River" and an acoustic version of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog."
• Creepy Children Singing: Michael Gira's daughter Saoirse sings backing vocals on "You Fucking People Make Me Sick".
• Creepy Circus Music: "I Love You This Much" samples what sounds like carnival music and distorts it in such a way that, when paired with the wailing vocals fading in and out of the background, it sounds like it's coming from the mouth of hell itself.
• Creepy Monotone: Whenever Gira does spoken word, it's usually like this.
• Dark and Troubled Past: If the music of Swans give indication, Michael Gira has had a rather difficult and interesting life.
• Despair Event Horizon: The narrator of "God Damn the Sun", an alcoholic mourning the death of a friend, seems to have reached it. He's drowning his sorrows while isolating himself from the outside world.
• Drone of Dread: Lots of it on later albums, especially Soundtracks for the Blind and The Seer.
• Eagle Land: "God Loves America" is a very bleak Type 2, excoriating it as a nation of empty consumerism and calling The American Dream a "dying lie".
• Epic Rocking: Taken to the extreme on their 2012 tours. "The Seer," in particular, seems to expand exponentially with each new incarnation; the latest version, which forms a medley with two other songs, stretches to a remarkable hour and a half. Their 2014 tour has featured the song "Frankie M," which goes on for nearly an hour each performance. The same goes for "The Knot", which was debuted live on their 2016 tour. On both of these tours, the audience was lucky if seven songs appeared over the course of two-and-a-half hours.
  • Songs in their recorded discography that exhibit this trope include: ^note  This is far from a complete list and arbitrarily includes only examples over ten minutes.
    • Public Castration is a Good Idea: "Money is Flesh" (12:07), "A Hanging" (12:32), and "Another You" (10:16).
    • Die Tür ist zu: "Ligeti's Breath / Hilflos Kind" (22:17).
    • Soundtracks for the Blind: "Helpless Child" (15:48), "Animus" (10:42), "The Sound" (13:12), and "The Final Sacrifice" (10:28).
    • Swans Are Dead: "Feel Happiness" (16:57), "Not Alone" (13:12), "I Crawled" (10:05), "Blood Promise" (15:23), "The Sound" (12:52), and "Helpless Child" (17:52).
    • The Seer: "The Seer" (32:14), "A Piece of the Sky" (19:10), and "The Apostate" (23:01).
    • To Be Kind: "Just a Little Boy (for Chester Burnett)" (12:40), "Bring the Sun / Toussaint L'Ouverture" (34:05), "She Loves Us!" (17:01), "Kirsten Supine" (10:33), and "Nathalie Neal" (10:15). There is only one song on the album under seven minutes long, and only two under eight (well, okay, "Oxygen" is 7:59).
    • The Glowing Man: "Cloud of Forgetting" (12:43), "Cloud of Unknowing" (25:12), "The World Looks Red / The World Looks Black" (14:27), "Frankie M." (20:58), "The Glowing Man" (28:50). The album approaches two hours in length despite containing only eight tracks. Even Michael Gira lampshaded the length of the album in an interview, when he said it was "the musical equivalent of Ben-Hur, or Akira Kurosawa's Ran."
    • Leaving Meaning is a notch tamer than its immediate predecessors in this regard, but still contains tracks that push beyond the 10 minute mark: "The Hanging Man" (10:48), "Leaving Meaning" (11:21), "Sunfucker" (10:44), and "The Nub" (12:01).
    • The Beggar only has three out of eleven tracks over the 10 minute mark, but those three take up over half of the album's runtime: "The Beggar" (10:15), "Ebbing" (11:04), and "The Beggar Lover (Three)" (43:51). The last track is so long that the vinyl release outright drops it due to space constraints.
• Epic Instrumental Opener: "A Piece of the Sky", "Apostate", "Frankie M", and "Feel Happiness" all have over 10 minutes of music before any actual singing.
• Everything Is an Instrument: The band's output, especially during the early years, have featured unconventional instruments. For example, "Time Is Money (Bastard)" uses the sound of a nail gun as percussion and live shows regularly used industrial tools and objects to produce noise and percussion.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Michael Gira's vocals often sound very deep and sinister. "The Seer Returns" is a good showcase of this.
• Extreme Doormat: Uncomfortably deconstructed and even zigzagged in their early songs. Special credit to "You Need Me," which manages this in less than two minutes and five lines.
• Fake Guest Star: Bill Rieflin wasn’t officially a member and didn’t tour with them, but he played on every single studio album from The Great Annihilator to The Glowing Man.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: Used frequently on their later work, particularly prevalent throughout The Seer.
• Genre Roulette: They go all over the place in terms of genre with each album. Post-punk, industrial, post-rock, no wave, neofolk, post-hardcore, and other, less classifiable stuff... Yep, they're not exactly a band that feels like staying in one place for long musically.
  • Soundtracks for the Blind can basically be described as this band's The White Album. It's two and a half hours long, has over two dozen tracks, and covers genres ranging from industrial, dark ambient, and post-rock to folk, hardcore punk, and even dance music. It also contains lots of both Epic Rocking and Miniscule Rocking and frequent Mood Whiplash as well.
• A God Am I: "I Am The Sun", which is also a Villain Song.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: Gira picked the name "Swans" because, to quote him, "Swans are really beautiful, majestic creatures with ugly temperaments", which was analogous to the kind of sound he wanted for the band.
• Green Aesop: "God Loves America" mentions environmental destruction as part of its condemnation of the United States.
• Hair-Raising Hare: On the cover of White Light From the Mouth of Infinity. It seems to be an Alice Allusion as well.
• Harsh Vocals: Gira's vocals on the band's early work consists of gravelly shouting.
• Horrible History Metal: "Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'ouverture" is a really bizarre example. It's named after the man responsible for the Haitian Revolution, and the lyrics consist entirely of Michael Gira screaming revolutionary slogans in French, accompanied by various sound effects like panicked horses galloping.
• I Am the Band: Michael Gira is the principal songwriter and only constant member.
• Iconic Item: Gira's cowboy hat.
• Idiosyncratic Cover Art:
  • The cover artwork for Greed, Time Is Money (Bastard), Holy Money, and A Screw are all variations of the same image of a dollar sign.
  • The band's releases from the late-1990's to the 2000's (Soundtracks For The Blind, Swans Are Dead, Die Tür Ist Zu, and various compilations and rereleases in this era) all have similar album covers featuring circles (with either a solid color or a logo inside) in front of a plain background and banners at the top and bottom with the band's name and album titles.
• I Love the Dead: "Not Alone" is a somewhat ambiguous if intensely disturbing example, also "Killing for Company", which is based on a real life Serial Killer.
• Indecipherable Lyrics:
  • "Young God" is primarily slurred with some yelling. You can't make out more than ten words, even with the lyrics in front of your face... Though comprehension is ultimately irrelevant, given the nature of said lyrics.
  • The second half of "The Seer" has a slurry of random gibberish that the official lyrics sheet lists simply as "indecipherable swearing", though it sometimes sounds like Gira is saying "I love you too much".
  • "Bring the Sun" primarily uses indecipherable mumbling for the first few minutes and then repeated bombastic Title Drops for the rest of the song.
• Industrial Metal: Their early works are frequently cited as precursors to this.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: They like this trope a lot. Public Castration is a Good Idea, "Raping a Slave", "Kill the Child", "You Fucking People Make Me Sick"...
• Intercourse with You: "Sealed in Skin" plays this trope for as much discomfort as humanly possible.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: "Red Velvet Wound" is one about a miscarriage.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gira has a reputation for being one of these, as his perfectionism and total dedication to his art have often led to strained relations with the people around him. However, there's an equal amount of stories of his being kind and polite, and he seems to be calming down somewhat as he ages.
• Lighter and Softer: The Burning World, musically if not lyrically. Leaving Meaning is also this in comparison to the heavy, monolithic triple albums that preceded it.
• List Song: "Some Things We Do".
• Loony Fan: "Volcano" seems to be about someone obsessed with a female rock star to the point of wanting to literally cannibalize her.
• Love Makes You Crazy: The level of mental instability exhibited in the majority of Swans' relationship songs, particularly early in their career, would make many a slasher movie director envious.
• Lyrical Dissonance: Practically a trademark style in their later years.
• Madness Mantra: Many of their lyrics can qualify, but "The Seer" has a particularly good one.
  "I see it all I see it all I see it all I see it all I see it all I see it all I see it all..."
  • "Apostate" has numerous repetitions of the phrases "It's not in my mind/get out of my mind" and "On a ladder to God."
  • "Alcohol the Seed" ends with Gira moaning "I need alcohol" over and over.
  • "The Glowing Man" gives us "Joseph is making my body fly" and "I am a glowing man I am".
• Metal Scream: Some of their earlier work had this, such as the song "Young God." It still shows up sometimes in their more recent work; "Bring the Sun / Toussaint L'Ouverture" and "Nathalie Neal" from To Be Kind both contain some examples near the end.
• Mind Screw: Most of their music, especially on Soundtracks for the Blind.
• Minimalistic Cover Art: Swans often goes for this, especially with the trilogy of The Seer, To Be Kind, and The Glowing Man, each of which features a single image against a blank background (Specifically, a weird creature resembling a fox on The Seer, a crying baby on To Be Kind, and a weird symbol resembling an arm on The Glowing Man). Leaving Meaning takes it up a notch; the only detail on the cover is the title written in all lowercase letters on a field of dull yellow.
• Motif:
  • Michael Gira often writes, both in his lyrics and his published fiction, about people consuming, absorbing, and merging with each other, both physically and mentally.
  • "Sun", "skin / flesh", and "love" frequently pop up as song titles or comparing people's desires to these things.
  • "Child" and variations of it shows up a lot during the band's early days, with songs such as "Helpless Child", "Stupid Child", "My Buried Child", and that's to name a few.
• Murder Ballad: Many of Jarboe's songs.
• New Sound Album: Just about every album.
• Nightmare Face:
  • The cover of "Filth", a set of grinning teeth surrounded by rotten gangrening gums and a pitch-black background.
  • The cover of The Seer, which features a grinning, beady-eyed fox/wolf thing surrounded by darkness.
• No Ending: "Big Strong Boss". And apparently no beginning.
  • "Raping A Slave" from the Young God EP also abruptly ends.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Very frequently, especially on their more ambient work.
• Post-No Wave Baroque Industrial Art Pop
• Obsession Song: A pretty big chunk of their discography could count. "Volcano" is especially disturbing in this respect.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: "Red Velvet Wound" samples what sounds like one and pairs it with Jarboe's sing song vocals describing a miscarriage.
• Rape as Drama: "When Will I Return?" is based on the actual sexual assault of Michael Gira's wife Jennifer. He wrote the song to help her work through the trauma of the experience, and it's sung almost entirely by her with some backing from Michael.
• Rearrange the Song: Swans has often revisited and reworked songs from their past albums, as well as Gira and Jarboe's solo projects. To name only a few noteworthy examples:
  • "The World Looks Red/The World Looks Black" is a heavily reworked version of the Sonic Youth song "The World Looks Red", which Gira wrote the lyrics to. Quite literally only the lyrics are the same between the two tracks.
  • Swans Are Dead contains radical live reworkings of "Blood Promise" and "All Lined Up". "Blood Promise" is greatly expanded from a 4 minute ballad into a 15 minute post-rock crescendo, while "All Lined Up"^* Named "I See Them All Lined Up" on this version is turned into a heavy noise rock track.
  • "Your Property" from Cop is heavily reworked on Soundtracks For The Blind as "YRP" from an industrial song sung by Gira to an atmospheric post-rock song sung by Jarboe. On the same album, "Yum-Yab" from Jarboe's solo album Sacrificial Cake, originally a surreal dark wave track, is rerecorded as "Yum-Yab Killers" and performed in a hardcore punk style.
  • "Amnesia" from Love Of Life is rerecorded on Leaving Meaning and rearranged from a post-punk-inspired track to a stripped-back acoustic track.
  • Several songs by the band, especially in the post-reunion era, began as live rearrangements of prexisting songs that gradually diverged to the point of becoming entirely new songs (as documented in the band's live albums). To name some noteworthy examples, the title track of The Seer originated from performances of "I Crawled" from Young God during the 2011-2012 tour, the title track of The Glowing Man evolved from performances of "Bring the Sun" from To Be Kind, and "Cathedrals of Heaven" from Leaving Meaning was formed from the live-only song "The Knot", which was itself a rearrangment of "No Words/No Thoughts" from My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky.
• Re-Cut: The vinyl release of The Beggar omits "The Beggar Lover (Three)" due to space constraints; instead, a download code for a digital edition of the song is packaged with the album. As the track is a whopping 44 minutes long, it would be impossible to fit it onto an LP without making serious compromises. The remaining tracklist is also drastically rearranged to compensate.
• Revolving Door Band: Their early days had a near-constant flow of departures and inductions. Things have calmed down since then.
• Sampling:
  • Many songs on Soundtracks for the Blind sample various field recordings, mainly recorded interviews with people from the case files of Jarboe's father, an FBI agent. Some of the more notable ones:
    • "I Was a Prisoner in Your Skull" contains a voicemail from a seemingly unhinged man describing ways in which the listener is "fucked up".
    • "The Beautiful Days" samples a phone sex operator talking about her job. Another sample from this same interview shows up in "Minus Something", in which the interviewee describes feeling emotionally drained by their life.
    • "How They Suffer" samples interviews with an old man and an old woman. The man talks about slowly going blind as a result of his glaucoma, while the woman describes various symptoms of what seems to be the aftermath of a heart attack.
    • "Her Mouth is Filled With Honey" contains a sample of Jarboe's father talking about finding his teenage daughter listening to music in the dark with incense burning, apparently having some sort of drug trip.
  • Love of Life also uses this occasionally. "(-) Pt. 3" samples an old man talking about hunting deer, while "Her" contains an interview with a young Jarboe talking about starting a band with some of her friends.
• Sanity Slippage Song: At least half the songs in their pre-Jarboe catalogue, as well as "The Apostate."
• Scare Chord: A favorite trick of this band.
  • The first minute and a half of "The Seer" is a barrage of horns and bagpipes that starts full blast immediately after "The Wolf", an extremely quiet song consisting of sparse acoustic guitar and Gira's ominous singing.
  • "You Fucking People Make Me Sick" is mostly a creepy acoustic ballad about a Serial Killer, but immediately after the line "Now bring me what is mine" is sung, the song is cut off by a crash of piano keys, pounding drums, and blaring horns.
  • "I Love You This Much" contains a sharp electronic shrieking noise that cuts in and out of the song unpredictably.
• Scatting: Gira does this a lot on more recent material, and it's apparently how he conceives a lot of the band's lyrics (see Word Salad Lyrics below for details). On some songs, such as "Bring the Sun" and "The Seer", the vocals are entirely just Madness Mantra alongside this trope.
• Serial Killer: "Young God" and "Killing for Company" are about (and from the perspectives of) Ed Gein and Dennis Nilssen respectively.
  • According to Gira, "You Fucking People Make Me Sick" is sung from the point of view of a sexually obsessive murderer preying on attractive scene kids.
• Shout-Out: The Chester Burnett to whom "Just a Little Boy" is dedicated to is better known as blues performer Howlin' Wolf, who is a major influence on recent Swans albums.
  • "Kirsten Supine" is inspired by a scene in Lars von Trier's Melancholia.
• Silly Love Songs: Few and far between, though when they do appear, the results are pretty impressive.
• Single Stanza Song: These make up a large chunk of their early work.
• Song Style Shift: Frequently with their longest tracks. "A Piece of the Sky" goes from ominous drone, to grim post-rock, to wistful country folk over the span of 19 minutes.
• Soprano and Gravel: Jarboe can do this by herself, which is best seen on "I Crawled", where she goes from spoken word, to One-Woman Wail, to Metal Scream.
• Spoken Word in Music: Strangely averted, as Gira's singing voice is so deep that on some songs you'd think that he's just monologuing the whole thing.
  • Perishing Indie Voice: Also averted.
  • Played Straight, on "The Most Unfortunate Lie" and "The Seer Returns", as well as several songs on Soundtracks for the Blind which contain samples of spoken word.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Anna and Maria von Hausswolf fulfill much the same role on Leaving Meaning that Jarboe did on past albums.
• Stalker with a Crush: "Volcano" and "Not Alone."
• Studio Chatter: "Jim" starts with someone saying "I'm ready when you guys is" and then Gira responding with "Roll it, Jason".
• Surprisingly Gentle Song: "In My Garden" and "Song for a Warrior" come to mind. And then there's The Burning World, a surprisingly gentle album. "Blind" is another example, but the beautiful instrumentation is accompanied by some of Gira's most depressing lyrics.
• Surreal Horror: The musical equivalent, especially on Soundtracks for the Blind.
• Survival Mantra: "I'm alive" is sung repeatedly in "When Will I Return", seemingly to invoke this.
• Take That!: "All Lined Up" is a particularly vicious one, as is (The World of) Skin's "You'll Never Forget". "You Fucking People Make Me Sick," despite its title, is more subtle.
• Talkative Loon: The guy sampled on "I Was a Prisoner In Your Skull".
• Textless Album Cover: All of their post-reformation albums until Leaving Meaning.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Frequently.
• Title Drop: Holy Money has "A Screw," which (in both versions on the album) contains the repeating line "Holy money, holy love..."
• Title Track: Played straight on Cop, Greed, Children of God, Love of Life, The Great Annihilator, The Seer, To Be Kind, The Glowing Man, and Leaving Meaning. Holy Money has a partial example with the song "A Screw (Holy Money)".
• Villain Song: Several. "Thug" is an unusual second-person variation.
  • "All Lined Up" is a particularly brutal example. "The Seer Returns" and "The Glowing Man" also seem to be examples.
• Vocal Evolution: On the band's early releases, most noticeably on Filth, Gira's vocals were delivered in a gruff style before gradually shifting into a deep bass-baritone style.
• Word Salad Lyrics: Many of their songs feature this in some form or another. Michael Gira has stated that he usually comes up with the tune of a song first and shapes the words to fit it, usually scatting along with the song and dropping words in where they seem appropriate while working it out. This typically results in very strange, disjointed lyrics, especially on the recent albums.
  • "No Words / No Thoughts" is a borderline example, being based on free association, though certain lines seem to characterise it as a Villain Song of sorts.
  • "Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture" mostly just has Gira screaming "BRING THE SUN" in the first half of the son, alongside vague scatting that kind of sounds like "Bring the sun", and in the second half he just screams out various revolutionary slogans in French over evocative sound effects.
• Would Hurt a Child: The narrator of "Beautiful Child".
  "I love a child
  I love a beautiful child
  I will hold this child in my arms
  And caress his soft head
  Listen to him cry
  Listen to him cry
  I can kill the child
  The beautiful child
  I will kill the child
  The beautiful child..."
• Yarling: Michael Gira's vocal style has slight shades of this. It's far more noticeable on the post-reformation albums.

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