however, melodically and lyrically, and lacks cohesion in its musical arrangement as well as "any subtlety or charm". Reviewing Harrison's career in a 2002 issue of Goldmine magazine, Dave Thompson termed "Piggies" "whimsically foreboding" and grouped it with late-period Beatles songs such as "Something" and "Long, Long, Long" that anticipated Harrison's successes as a solo artist after the group's break-up in 1970. Tim Riley describes the song's narrative as "smug anti-elitism outdone only by the dourness of John's 'Glass Onion' and 'Sexy Sadie'". 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". 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'". 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. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its release, Jacob Stolworthy of The Independent listed "Piggies" at number 14 in his ranking of the White Album's 30 tracks. He admired the harpsichord passage as a "highlight" of the album and wrote: "On first listen, 'Piggies' is too strange to enjoy. Once its Orwellian nature is embraced, however, it becomes a joyous two fingers in the face of establishment told by Harrison in baroque pop form." 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. Other versions Theo Bikel, an actor, folk singer and activist who was a delegate at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, covered "Piggies" on his 1969 album A New Day. 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. The 1976 television adaptation of Vincent Bugliosi's book, also titled