Reznor wrote the song after the extended playBroken was completed. It was initially a poem which he expanded into a full song. He later moved to a house famous for its status as the site of the gruesome Tate murders, on July 4, 1992, and created a studio space there, calling it Le Pig. When asked about the building where production on the song was done, Reznor responded that he chose it merely for space considerations, claiming not to have been aware of the house's connection to the murders until after he chose it. "I looked at a lot of places", Reznor said. "And this just happened to be the one I liked most." The studio name, Le Pig, alludes to the word "PIG" written with Tate's blood on the front door by the murderers, itself a reference to The Beatles' song "Piggies". This incident introduced Reznor to their 1968 album, the White Album, which included "Piggies". 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.
Music and lyrics
Former Nine Inch Nails guitarist Richard Patrick has claimed in various interviews that "Piggy" was Reznor's nickname for him and that the song was written in response to Patrick leaving the band. This is the first NIN song to use the line "nothing can stop me now", which concludes the track. The phrase appears often in Reznor's later writing, making appearances in the songs "Ruiner", "Big Man with a Gun", "La Mer", "We're in This Together", and "Sunspots". Quiet and slow overall, the song's tempo is 65 BPM, and played in the key of B. It is also the first track on the album to use "The Downward Spiral leitmotif", albeit on the organ. It also appears on Closer on piano, the title track on acoustic guitar, and A Warm Place with the acoustic guitar part reversed.
Release and reception
"Piggy" was released as a promotional single on The Downward Spiral in December 1994. The single was not labeled as a halo number, and has no music video created in promotion of the song. It reached number 20 on the BillboardModern Rock Tracks chart, making the album fly upwards to number 62. "Piggy," a remix of "Piggy" produced by Rick Rubin and featuring Dave Navarro on guitar, appears on The Downward Spiral's accompanying remix album, Further Down the Spiral. The subtitle is the "nothing can stop me now" lyric.
