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.

"[17] Musicologist Walter Everett cites these words as evidence that Harrison's main inspiration for the song was Orwell's work, particularly "his fable of autocracy masquerading as democracy, Animal Farm".

[18] While also identifying Orwell's book as an influence on the composition,[15] author Ian Inglis views "Piggies" as one of several White Album songs in which the Beatles drew inspiration from their childhood in the 1940s.

[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.

[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.

These include the use of "arpeggio fragments" in Harrison's opening guitar motif and the repetition of this four-bar passage before each verse and the bridge – a device typical of Schubert's various lieder and the works of other nineteenth-century composers.

[14] 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".

[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).

[31] Through the combination of studio effects and overdubs, his vocal performance on the song consists of three contrasting segments; in Inglis' description, these comprise a "naturalistic" approach at the start of the track, "a distorted middle", and chorus singing at the end.

[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".

[57] The animal-themed sequencing was a deliberate decision on the part of Lennon and McCartney,[3] who prepared the running order of the album's 30 tracks, with Martin,[58] after Harrison had left for Los Angeles to work with Apple signing Jackie Lomax.

1968 – the year of Daley's convention [in Chicago], Nixon's election, and unprecedented numbers of student anti-Vietnam War demonstrations – was a time when any representative of "the system," particularly a politician or a policeman, was fated to automatically take on the guise of a "pig" in the view of much of the counterculture.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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] Record Mirror remarked that the birdsong effects of "Blackbird" were replaced by "snorts and grunts" on "Piggies", which the reviewer described as "a society beef (or pork if you like)" in the style of folk singer Roy Harper.

[84] Writing in Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner considered the song to be "an amazing choice to follow 'Blackbird'", given the contrast between the two pieces – "'Blackbird' so encouraging, 'Piggies' so smug (though accurate: 'what they need's a damn good whacking').

[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.

[98][99] Like its rival counterculture publications Los Angeles Free Press and Tuesday's Child,[99] Rolling Stone initially supported Manson, Dalton contending that it was a case of the conservative-minded authorities framing "some poor hippie guru".

[98] According to author Steve Turner, "Piggies" "became notorious" as a result of the Manson Family's 1971 murder trial, which was successfully prosecuted by Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi.

[107] Writing in 1977, Nicholas Schaffner said that, despite the "merciless stereotypes" presented in its lyrics, "Piggies" and Harrison's three other White Album compositions "firmly established him as a contender" beside the Beatles' principal songwriters, Lennon and McCartney.

[114] With regard to George Martin's contention that The Beatles should have been edited down to a single disc, however, he views "Piggies" as one of the White Album "essentials" contributed by Harrison, along with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Savoy Truffle".

[115][nb 15] Among reviewers of the 2009 remastered album, Sean Highkin of Beats Per Minute cites the track as evidence that, despite the disharmonious atmosphere within the group during 1968, "All four Beatles were working at their highest levels", with Harrison "at his most acerbic on 'Piggies'".

[117] Mark Richardson of Pitchfork highlights the song as one of The Beatles' "iffy jokes" that nevertheless succeed, due to the high standard of the band's songwriting and the effective sequencing of the double album.

"[119] AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine, commenting on The Beatles as a whole, described "Piggies" as a "silly" song that nonetheless demonstrates Harrison's development as a songwriter, along with his other contributions to the album.

[122] Reviewing the opening night of Bikel's residency at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, in June 1970, Billboard magazine described the song as one of "the more meaningful titles" that the singer had adopted from the work of popular acts such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Donovan.