Piggies

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Piggies
The Beatles
publication November 22, 1968
length 2 min 4 s
Genre (s) pop
Author (s) George Harrison
Label Apple Records
album The Beatles

Piggies ( English piggy ) is a song by the British band The Beatles from 1968. It appeared on the double album The Beatles . It was composed and sung by the lead guitarist of the band George Harrison .

background

George Harrison had already written Piggies in 1966, around the same time he was writing the thematically similarly located song Taxman . In terms of content, Piggies deals with greed for money and class differences . Harrison wrote most of the text himself; John Lennon and Harrison's mother Louise Harrison each contributed a line of text. A verse that Harrison wrote is not included in the Beatles version of the song. Harrison sang these later in late 1991 on his last tour in Japan . In this version Piggies appeared on the live album Live in Japan .

Piggies is one of the songs cited by American criminal Charles Manson as a justification for a series of murders. He had misunderstood the song as an invitation to murder the white establishment . In the murder of u. a. Sharon Tate , Leno and Rosemary LaBianca as well as Gary Hinman in 1969 the words "Pig", "political piggy" or "death to pigs" - written with the blood of the victims - were left at the crime scene. Following the line “Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon”, knives and forks were inserted into the body of the victim Rosemary LaBianca.

admission

The recording for Piggies began on September 19, 1968 in London's Abbey Road Studios . Producers were George Martin and Chris Thomas , assisted by Ken Scott . While the band was working in Studio Two, the producer Chris Thomas discovered a harpsichord in the neighboring Studio One , which was there for a classical recording. Thomas suggested moving the instrument to Studio Two to use on Piggies . However, since the harpsichord was booked for another recording, it was recorded in Studio One instead. Ultimately, Chris Thomas played the harpsichord on the recording himself.

The band recorded a total of eleven takes with the following line-up:

  • George Harrison: acoustic guitar
  • Paul McCartney: Bass
  • Ringo Starr: tambourine
  • Chris Thomas: Harpsichord

John Lennon was present during the session but did not participate.

The following day George Harrison recorded the vocals alone , which were doubled in places. In the last verse, Paul McCartney and John Lennon also sang along. At the same time, John Lennon put together a tape with grunting noises from pigs, which were later mixed with the song. An old shellac record with animal noises from the EMI archive served as the sound source .

On October 10, 1968, an eight-piece string orchestra (four violins , two violas , two cellos ) was added to the recording , which recorded an arrangement by George Martin. The next day Piggies was mixed in mono and in stereo, whereby the recordings of the pig grunts differed significantly.

publication

Piggies appeared on November 22, 1968 on the double album The Beatles . It was placed between the songs Blackbird and Rocky Raccoon , which also have animal names in the title. As single was Piggies not decoupled. An early demo version of the song with slightly varied lyrics appeared in 1996 on the third album as part of the anthology series.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ Bugliosi, Vincent; Gentry, Curt (2010). Helter Skelter - The murder frenzy of Charles Manson: A Chronicle of Horror , Riva-Verlag, ISBN 978-3868830576
  3. ↑ [2]
  4. ↑ [3]
  5. ↑ [4]