Piggies

Copyright - 1968 EMI Records Ltd.

"Piggies" is a Beatles song from double-disc album The Beatles (also known as The White Album). It was written by George Harrison as social commentary on class and corporate greed.

Instrumentation
Piggies features a Baroque-style harpsichord and string quartet — which take an unexpected turn at one point playing a blues riff.

Chris Thomas (producing in George Martin's absence on some of the 'White Album' sessions) played the harpisichord part.

Lyrical Input
Harrison's mother provided the line "What they need's a damn good whacking", and Lennon contributed with the line "clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon"

Alternate Lyrics
There was an additional verse written for the song in 1968 but omitted during the actual recording. It involved the "piggies" playing "piggy pranks" in order to achieve its rhyming couplet of "piggy banks". Harrison reinstated this verse in all live performances of the song in the 1990s. A version can be heard on his double album 'Live in Japan'.

Yeah, everywhere there's lots of piggies

Playing piggy pranks

And you can see them on their trotters

Down at the piggy banks

Paying piggy thanks

To thee pig brother

The original lyrics read "to cut their pork chops" (as heard on the Anthology 3 album). Lennon created the tape loop for the pig noises that were sampled for this song.


Track Placement
"Piggies" is sandwiched between two other songs with animals in their titles ("Blackbird" and "Rocky Raccoon"). This was a deliberate decision on the part of Lennon and McCartney while preparing the sequencing of the songs for the album.

Lyrics:
Have you see the little piggies
crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt
to play around in

Have you see the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts
to play around in

In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a darn good whacking

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives
to eat their bacon

One more time