"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.
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.
As an anti-establishment song, "Piggies" recalls Harrison's Revolver composition "Taxman".
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!"
Harrison's main inspiration for the song was Orwell's work, particularly "his fable of autocracy masquerading as democracy, Animal Farm"
