Rocky Raccoon: The Beatles
This is on their 1968 album The Beatles (also known as The White Album).
Explore posts in the same categories: MusicTags: the beatles
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
July 31, 2010 at 10:39 am
yousendit link:
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/919711059/6576a45e62574e494b87c45718b794c6
July 31, 2010 at 5:53 pm
On a theming day, it might have been fun to roll out Flanders and Swann “I’m a Gnu”
July 31, 2010 at 6:21 pm
My Dear Hedley,
Funny you should say that as I almost posted it as a fifth offering, but decided to save it for a different theme. I love that song and I gnu you would too!
August 1, 2010 at 9:19 pm
here we go..
Rocky Raccoon was written in India by Paul McCartney in early 1968.
McCartney wrote the song on the roof of the ashram in Rishikesh, with John Lennon and Donovan Leitch also helping out.
“Rocky Raccoon is quirky, very me. I like talking blues so I started off like that, then I did my tongue-in-cheek parody of a western and threw in some amusing lines. I just tried to keep it amusing, really; it’s me writing a play, a little one-act play giving them most of the dialogue. Rocky Raccoon is the main character, then there’s the girl whose real name was Magill, who called herself Lil, but she was known as Nancy.”
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
The song was originally titled Rocky Sassoon, but was changed by McCartney to make the main character sound “more like a cowboy”.
“There are some names I use to amuse, Vera, Chuck and Dave or Nancy and Lil, and there are some I mean to be serious, like Eleanor Rigby, which are a little harder because they have to not be joke names. In this case Rocky Raccoon is some bloke in a raccoon hat, like Davy Crockett. The bit I liked about it was him finding Gideon’s Bible and thinking, Some guy called Gideon must have left it for the next guy. I like the idea of Gideon being a character. You get the meaning and at the same time get in a poke at it. All in good fun. And then of course the doctor is drunk.”
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
McCartney is said to have got the idea for the drunken doctor from an road accident he was involved with in 1966.
” Paul had a moped which he came off one day in May 1966. He was a bit stoned at the time and cut his mouth and chipped his tooth. The doctor that came to treat him was stinking of gin and because he was a bit worse for wear he didn’t make a very good job of the stitching which is why Paul had a nasty lump on his lip for a while.”
Margo Bird, Apple scruff
A Hard Day’s Write, Steve Turner
The Beatles recorded Rocky Raccoon during a single session on 15 August 1968. They recorded nine takes of the basic rhythm track, with McCartney on vocals and acoustic guitar, Starr on drums and Lennon on bass.
Onto the master, take nine, The Beatles added another bass and drum track. Lennon then overdubbed a harmonica part, George Martin played the honky-tonk piano solo, and Lennon, McCartney and Harrison contributed backing vocals.
The rejected take eight was included on Anthology 3 in 1996. The opening lyrics are significantly different from the final version:
“Rocky Raccoon, he was a fool unto himself
And he would not swallow his foolish pride
Mind you, coming from a little town in Minnesota
It was not the kind of thing that a young guy did
When a fella went and stole his chick away from him.”
According to Mark Lewisohn, the lyrics underwent a number of changes throughout the session:
“For a song recorded and completed so quickly, Paul was surprisingly uncertain of the lyrics, formulating them as he went along and leaving the following rejected ideas in his wake: “roll up his sleeves on the sideboard”; “roll over, Rock… he said ooh, it’s OK doc, it’s just a scratch and I’ll be OK when I get home”; “This here is the story of a young boy living in Minnesota… fuck off!”; and “move over doc, let’s have none of your cock”. As Paul himself later said, between takes, “I don’t quite know the words to that verse yet!”
Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions
August 1, 2010 at 10:56 pm
sblake,
That was another amazingly interesting background. I always wondered about the cowboy bit and the names. They seemed somewhat whimsical to me. I mean, really a raccoon named Rocky!!