Piggy

"Piggy" is a song by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, and the second track of The Downward Spiral (1994). It was written by Trent Reznor, co-produced by Flood, and recorded in "Le Pig", a reincarnation of the living room of 10050 Cielo Drive.

"Piggy" is among the three songs on the album named after animals, the others being "March Of The Pigs" and "Reptile". The title of the song was also inspired by Charles Manson, whose accompanying "family" murdered actress Sharon Tate, wife of noted film director Roman Polanski, in August 1969. The song is well-known for being Reznor's only live drumming performance, since he is a multi-instrumentalist.

Recording

"Piggy" was recorded in a studio built in the living room of 10050 Cielo Drive, Le Pig.

Reznor wrote the song after Broken (1992) was completed. It was initially a poem, but he magnified it into a composition. He later moved to the house where Tate's place of death was located at, on July 4, 1992, and invented a studio space there, calling it "Le Pig".^[1] When asked about the building where production on the song was done at, Reznor responded that he chose to record it there due to having found the house interesting. "I looked at a lot of places," Reznor said. "And this just happened to be the one I liked most."^[2]

This title of "Le Pig" alludes to the message that was scrawled on the front door with Tate's blood by her murderers, simply "PIG", a reference to a The Beatles song of the same name. Effectively, Reznor was introduced to their self-titled 1968 album by Rick Rubin, which included "Piggies".^[3]

The frantic drumming on the outro is Reznor's only attempt at performing drums on the record, and one of the few "live" drum performances on the album. He had stated that the recording was from him testing the microphone setup in studio, but he liked the sound too much not to include it.^[4]

Music and lyrics

This is the first NIN song to use the line "nothing can stop me now", which concludes the lyrics. "Ruiner" and "Big Man with a Gun" also use the phrase. Even "La Mer", "We're in This Together", and "Sunspots" include those lyrics.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}

A letimotif used throughout the album is debuted at "Piggy". Pictured here is the pattern (transposed to A) on the album's title track.

Quiet and slow overall, the song's tempo is set in 65 BPM, and played in the B# tuning. It is also the first track on the album to use "The Downward Spiral leitmotif", albeit on the organ. (see The Downward Spiral leitmotif section)^[11]

Release and reception

"Piggy" was released as a promotional single on The Downward Spiral, on December 1994. The single was not labeled as a halo number, and has no music video created in promotion of the song. It reached the Top 20 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, making the album fly upwards to number 62.^[12] "Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now)," a remix of "Piggy," appears on The Downward Spiral's accompanying remix album, Further Down the Spiral (1995). The subtitle is the "nothing can stop me now" lyric.

References

Bibliography

• Huxley, Martin (1997). Nine Inch Nails. Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-15612-X. 

External links

• "Piggy" at NinWiki.com