"Piggies" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 album The Beatles (also known as the "White Album"). Written by George Harrison as a social commentary, the song serves as an Orwellian satire on greed and consumerism. Among several elements it incorporates from classical music, the track features harpsichord and orchestral strings in the baroque pop style, which are contrasted by Harrison's acerbic lyrics and the sound of grunting pigs. Although credited to George Martin, the recording was largely produced by Chris Thomas, who also contributed the harpsichord part.
In the context of the turbulent political climate of 1968, "Piggies" was adopted by the counterculture as an anti-establishment theme song. It was also among the tracks on The Beatles that cult leader Charles Manson used as the foundation for his Helter Skelter theory of an American race-related countercultural revolution. Inspired especially by the line "What they need's a damn good whacking", Manson's followers left clues relating to the lyrics at the scenes of the Tate–LaBianca murders in August 1969.
"Piggies" has received widely varying responses from music critics, and its reputation suffered due to the association with Manson following the latter's trial in 1971. While some reviewers admire its musical qualities and recognise sardonic humour in the lyrics, others consider the song to be mean-spirited and lacking in subtlety. Harrison's demo of the song, recorded at his home in Surrey, was included on the Beatles' 1996 compilation Anthology 3. A live version by Harrison, reinstating a verse that was omitted from the studio recording, appears on his 1992 album Live in Japan. Folk singer and activist Theo Bikel and anarcho-punk musician Danbert Nobacon are among the artists who have covered "Piggies".
Background and inspiration George Harrison began writing "Piggies" in early 1966, around the time that the Beatles were recording their album Revolver. He returned to the song two years later, after discovering his manuscript in the attic of his parents' house in Liverpool. The same visit led to Harrison starting a new composition, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", which he similarly completed for inclusion on the Beatles' self-titled double album (also known as "the White Album").
As an anti-establishment song, "Piggies" recalls Harrison's Revolver composition "Taxman". In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison describes "Piggies" as a social commentary. He intended it as a light-hearted satire on consumerism and class distinction. Through its theme of social strata within a community of farm animals (in this case, one consisting entirely of pigs), the song references George Orwell's 1945 novel Animal Farm. According to Harrison's early draft of "Piggies", the lyrics contained a final verse, subsequently cut for the Beatles' recording, that ends with the animals "Paying piggy thanks – to thee Pig Brother!" Musicologist Walter Everett cites these words as evidence that Harrison's main inspiration for the song was Orwell's work, particularly "his fable of autocracy masquerading as democracy, Animal Farm". While also identifying Orwell's book as an influence on the composition, author Ian Inglis views "Piggies" as one of several White Album songs in which the Beatles drew inspiration from their childhood in the 1940s.
During Harrison's Liverpool visit in early 1968, his mother, Louise, responded to his request for assistance with the lyrics by providing the line "What they need's a damn good whacking". Harrison then taped a demo of the song at his house in Esher, Surrey, in late May that year. Following this recording, John Lennon supplied the final phrase in the line "Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon", replacing the words "to cut their pork chops", which Harrison had sung on the demo version. When performing "Piggies" in concert during the early 1990s, Harrison reinstated the omitted final verse.
From 1966, particularly in the United States, the slang usage of the word "pig" had grown from being a derogatory term for a police officer to refer also to consumerism and establishment figures in general. This was especially so in 1968, as the counterculture became more politically focused, coinciding with the rise of the Black Power movement and the number of mass demonstrations against America's involvement in the Vietnam War. Although author Jon Wiener terms Harrison and Lennon "the radicals among the Beatles", citing their past outspokenness about Vietnam and their readiness to embrace LSD experimentation and Transcendental Meditation, Harrison denied that he was using "pig" in its new context. Inglis nevertheless says that the song title alone "references" the countercultural view of police officers.
Composition Music "Piggies" features baroque musical elements in its melody and texture. Music journalist Steve Smith groups the song with the Paul McCartney-written "For No One" and "She's Leaving Home" as examples of the Beatles' forays into baroque pop. Harrison biographer Simon Leng recognises the composition as essentially a folk song, however, that was then given a "satirical, drawing-room [musical] arrangement" on the official recording by the prominence of harpsichord and orchestral strings.
The song's musical key is A. Its structure comprises two verses, a middle eight (or bridge) section, an instrumental passage (over the verse melody), followed by a final verse that leads into a coda (or outro) and a formal ending. In his commentary on "Piggies", musicologist Alan Pollack remarks on its abundance of classical music traits. These include the use of "arpeggio fragments" in Harrison's opening guitar motif and the repetition of this four-bar passage before each verse and the bridge – a device typical of Schubert's various lieder and the works of other nineteenth-century composers. During the song, the expected cycle of fifth notes in the major scale is interrupted through the inclusion of a III7 (C7) chord, which first appears at the end of the passage leading into the middle eight, before the melody drops down a tone to the minor ii (Bm) chord. The same section's first line ends with the surprise inclusion of a blues-based riff, soon after which the C7 chord is used again in the ascent to the IV (subdominant) chord, helping to accentuate the phrase "damn good whacking".
As a further example of the melody's baroque characteristics, the bridge contains an implied but unfulfilled tonicisation of VI. In addition, over the coda, the recurring four-bar instrumental passage is partly shifted to a parallel minor, through the use of the more classically oriented Am chord, rather than its major equivalent as before. Following the instrumental coda, the song ends with the strings playing a tonically ambiguous cadence, which Everett describes as an unexpected "diminished fourth away from tonic".
Lyrics Inglis writes that while the nursery rhyme form was Harrison's musical source for "Piggies", his lyrics adopt a political perspective, creating "a savage attack on the corporate greed of contemporary capitalism". In the first verse, Harrison sings of "the little piggies", for whom "life is getting worse". In verse two, "the bigger piggies" are described as "stirring up" the dirt that those smaller animals "crawl" in, while they themselves are dressed in "starched white shirts". According to music journalist Kit O'Toole, whereas the song's harpsichord-led introduction "suggests a salon featuring royalty in their finery", the lyrics immediately nullify this image in their depiction of pigs toiling in mud, thereby heightening the overall satirical effect. Everett comments that the same contrast between refined instrumentation and uncompromising subject matter was later adopted by Stevie Wonder for his track "Village Ghetto Land", issued on Songs in the Key of Life (1976).
During the middle eight, Harrison refers to the privileged pigs in their sties who "don't care what goes on around"; they appear devoid of empathy, and therefore deserve "a damn good whacking". In the third verse, Harrison declares that piggies are "everywhere", leading "piggy lives". He presents a final image of couples dining, holding their cutlery before devouring bacon.
Production Recording
The Beatles recorded the basic track for "Piggies" at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London on 19 September 1968. After Harrison had performed the song alone on the Esher demo – playing acoustic guitar and whistling over the solo – the use of harpsichord on the official recording came about through happenstance. Acting as a producer in George Martin's absence on some of the White Album sessions, Chris Thomas noticed the instrument set up in preparation for a later session, for a classical recording, in EMI's Studio 1. Harrison agreed that a harpsichord part would suit the song, and so the Beatles' session was moved from Studio 2.
The group taped eleven takes of "Piggies" before achieving the requisite performance. The line-up was Harrison on acoustic guitar, Thomas on harpsichord, McCartney on bass and Ringo Starr on tambourine. Lennon was present at the session but, with only 4-track recording facilities available in Studio 1 (and the available tracks taken up by the other four musicians), he did not play on the basic track. Having attended London's Royal Academy of Music as a child, Thomas performed the harpsichord solo in an authentic classical style, according to Pollack, who highlights how "the melody played by the last three fingers [of the right hand] alternates with a repeated note played by the thumb".
Overdubbing On 20 September, the recording was copied over to 8-track tape in Studio 2, to allow for overdubbing. Harrison then added his lead vocal, together with harmony vocals on the last verse, creating a mock operatic chorus over the latter section. Through the combination of studio effects and overdubs, his vocal performance on the song consists of three contrasting segments; in Inglis' description, these comprise a "naturalistic" approach at the start of the track, "a distorted middle", and chorus singing at the end. To produce the sharp nasal sound over the middle eight, Harrison sang through a filter that limited the signal to a narrow, 3.5-kilohertz band. Described by Everett as "remarkable", the pitch of Harrison's vocals in the final verse ranges from a low E bass note in one of the harmony parts, to a descant falsetto B4 in the high harmony part. Lennon created a tape loop of pre-recorded pig noises, sourced from EMI's library, as well as supplying his own grunting sounds. Drum beats were also added, marking the transition from the solo into the third verse.
Final overdubs on the song were carried out on 10 October, during the last week of recording for The Beatles. Having returned from his extended holiday, Martin wrote a string arrangement for four violins, two violas and two cellos. These parts were recorded during the same orchestral overdubbing session as for Lennon's track "Glass Onion". Towards the end of "Piggies", Harrison added the spoken words "One more time", before the orchestra played the last two chords. In his overview of the recording, author and critic Tim Riley interprets the "thick scouse" delivery of this introduction to the "final grand cadence" as Harrison "smearing social elitists with their own symbols of 'high' culture". Everett refers to the contrast between the various classical elements and the combination of pig sounds and "rude" final cadence as representing an "Orwellian comparison of pigs to socially horrid, though outwardly refined, tyrants".
Mixing on "Piggies" was completed on 11 October. The mono mix has the animal sounds appearing at different points in the song, relative to the stereo version. In addition, Harrison's guitar is more prominent in the mono mix.
Release and reception