Piggies

The sessions for the double album The Beatles lasted almost five months - from the end of May to late October in 1968.  Thirty four songs were recorded in that time, including five by George Harrison, but he had to wait until the midpoint of those sessions before his bandmates finally turned their attention to one of his compositions.  Ironically, that composition - Not Guilty - did not even make the final cut for the album.

The satirical Piggies was the third Harrisong to be recorded by the Beatles for the "White Album."  It was among the many that the group put on tape at George's house back in May before the official sessions began.  Unlike most of the songs previewed at that time, it had not been written in India.  Harrison claimed that he had written most of it a few years earlier, but left it unfinished and put the lyrics away in a book.

The demo foreshadows the elegant arrangement of the finished recording in the way George plays it on acoustic guitar.  As with most of these demos, the vocals are double-tracked.  Lyrically, the only difference is the phrase "to cut their pork chops" instead of Lennon's suggestion "to eat their bacon."  One other contributor to the lyrics was George's mother Louise, who gave him the line "what they need's a damn good whacking."

September 19th, 1968 was the first official recording session for the song, during the time that producer George Martin was away on holiday and young Chris Thomas served as producer for the Beatles.  With Paul on bass, Ringo on tambourine and George on acoustic guitar, they recorded ten takes of the song in studio two.  While on a break, Chris Thomas noticed a harpsichord set up in studio one and thought it would sound ideal on the track.  The session was moved into that studio, the classically-trained Thomas sat at the keyboard, and take eleven proved to be the keeper.

On September 20th, George overdubbed his lead vocal with occasional double-tracking.  John, who had been present the previous day, finally joined in with Paul and George at the microphone as they recorded harmonies for the final verse.  One other contribution from John was a tape loop of grunting pigs which was dropped into the song, although somewhat differently on the mono and stereo mixes.

When a refreshed George Martin rejoined the sessions and listened to the tracks that had been recorded in his absence, he suggested that Piggies could use a string arrangement to augment the irony of the harpsichord part.  Harrison agreed, and an octet performed Martin's score on October 10th.  One final touch added at the mixing stage was George saying "one more time" before the final cadence played by the strings.  This verbal comment was actually from September 20th when the vocal harmonies were being recorded. 

The song sits on side two of the "White Album" between two other songs with animals in their titles - Blackbird and Rocky Raccoon.  The Beatles never revisited Piggies, but George revived it for his brief tour of Japan in 1991, also playing a final verse that he had omitted when the song was originally recorded.  This can be heard on his album Live in Japan.  But wait...there's more...

Hunter Davies, who had written the official biography of the Beatles during their career, collected handwritten manuscripts of as many of the group's songs as he could over the years and published the book The Beatles Lyrics in 2014.  In it, he reprints a set of lyrics in George's own hand that contains yet another verse, never before seen or heard.