Bad Piggies R-3

[Yrko Philogene]

"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.

"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".

George Harrison began writing "Piggies" in early 1966,[1] around the time that the Beatles were recording their album Revolver.[2] He returned to the song two years later, after discovering his manuscript in the attic[3] of his parents' house in Liverpool.[1] 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").[4][nb 1]

During Harrison's Liverpool visit in early 1968,[14] his mother, Louise, responded to his request for assistance with the lyrics by providing the line "What they need's a damn good whacking".[11][20] Harrison then taped a demo of the song at his house in Esher, Surrey, in late May that year.[21] 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.[22] When performing "Piggies" in concert during the early 1990s, Harrison reinstated the omitted final verse.[16]

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[23] and establishment figures in general.[24] This was especially so in 1968, as the counterculture became more politically focused, coinciding with the rise of the Black Power movement[13] and the number of mass demonstrations against America's involvement in the Vietnam War.[24][25] 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,[26] Harrison denied that he was using "pig" in its new context.[13] Inglis nevertheless says that the song title alone "references" the countercultural view of police officers.[15]

"Piggies" features baroque musical elements in its melody and texture.[27] 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.[28] 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.[8]

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".[34] In the first verse, Harrison sings of "the little piggies",[2] for whom "life is getting worse".[35] In verse two, "the bigger piggies" are described as "stirring up" the dirt that those smaller animals "crawl" in,[2] while they themselves are dressed in "starched white shirts".[13] 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.[2] 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).[27]

During the middle eight,[35] 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.[2]

The group taped eleven takes of "Piggies" before achieving the requisite performance.[36] The line-up was Harrison on acoustic guitar, Thomas on harpsichord, McCartney on bass and Ringo Starr on tambourine.[42] 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.[43] Having attended London's Royal Academy of Music as a child,[36] 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".[31]

Final overdubs on the song were carried out on 10 October, during the last week of recording for The Beatles.[23][49] Having returned from his extended holiday, Martin wrote a string arrangement for four violins, two violas and two cellos.[47] These parts were recorded during the same orchestral overdubbing session as for Lennon's track "Glass Onion".[50] Towards the end of "Piggies", Harrison added the spoken words "One more time",[9] before the orchestra played the last two chords.[31] 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".[9] 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".[27]

Mixing on "Piggies" was completed on 11 October.[47] The mono mix has the animal sounds appearing at different points in the song, relative to the stereo version.[3][51][nb 6] In addition, Harrison's guitar is more prominent in the mono mix.[3]

According to author Mark Hertsgaard, "Piggies" "[kept] the Beatles' countercultural flame alive",[60] as the song was embraced as an anti-authoritarian anthem by the counterculture, following a year of protests and civil unrest in many Western countries.[11] Among many such events in the United States,[24] police officers clashed violently with anti-Vietnam War demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 1968.[57][61][nb 7] David A. Noebel, an American arch-conservative, paired the song with "Back in the U.S.S.R." when he accused the Beatles of being pro-Communist and leading a move towards revolutionary socialism with the White Album.[64] Along with McCartney's "Rocky Raccoon", however, "Piggies" was also criticised by the radical New Left as an example of the Beatles resorting to whimsical parody instead of directly addressing contemporary issues.[65]

Among the more conservative elements of the British establishment and the public, the release of The Beatles coincided with a less tolerant attitude towards the band.[66][67] On 19 October, two days after the 24-hour session to sequence the album, Lennon, along with Yoko Ono, was arrested for possession of cannabis;[68] Lennon described the bust as a "set-up" by the London Drug Squad.[69][nb 8] During a radio interview shortly afterwards, in Los Angeles, Harrison questioned the local police department's motto "To serve and protect" when asked about the criminality of smoking marijuana.[72] In mid November,[73] he represented the Beatles on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,[74] which was in conflict at the time with the CBS television network over its political satire[75][76] and regularly subjected to censorship.[77] Author John Winn describes Harrison's guest appearance as "an important show of support" following Richard Nixon's recent US election win.[78][nb 9]

Writing in the International Times, Barry Miles found "Piggies" "unsubtle" and likely to appeal to "those involved with Chicago's pig-police".[79] William Mann of The Times noted the recurring nature theme throughout the album, from brief mentions of monkeys, lizards, elephants and tigers, to song titles such as "Blackbird" and "Piggies", and asked of Harrison's characters: "are they Chicago police or just company directors?"[80] Melody Maker's Alan Walsh admired the instrumentation on the recording and deemed "Piggies" to be "The Beatles' satire track ... a kick at upper-class reactionaries or journalists (or both)".[81][82] In his unfavourable review of the White Album, in The New York Times, Mike Jahn considered that many of the tracks were "either so corny or sung in such a way that it is hard to tell whether [the Beatles] are being serious", among which the words of Harrison's song served as "an act of lyrical overstatement".[83]

Musician and cult leader Charles Manson interpreted several songs on The Beatles as an inducement for his followers, known as the Manson Family,[87] to carry out a series of murders in Los Angeles in August 1969.[88][89] Inspired by the line "What they need's a damn good whacking",[90] Manson adopted "Piggies" as one of the tracks to justify such attacks on the White bourgeoisie.[91][92][nb 11] Believing that the Beatles were instructing him through their music,[24] Manson envisioned these attacks as the prelude to an apocalyptic racial war between the establishment and the Black community that would leave him and his followers to rule America on counterculture principles.[93] At the scenes of the murders of Sharon Tate, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, Gary Hinman and others, the words "Political Piggy",[24] "Pig" and "Death to Pigs" were written on the walls with the victims' blood.[94] In the case of Leno LaBianca, items of cutlery were inserted into his body in reference to the lyric "Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon".[95][96]

c80f0f1006