Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 15 August 1968
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Ken Scott
Released: 22 November 1968 (UK), 25 November 1968 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, bass guitar
John Lennon: backing vocals, harmonica, harmonium, six-string bass
George Harrison: backing vocals
Ringo Starr: drums
George Martin: piano
Available on:
The Beatles (White Album)
Anthology 3
A jokey song about a cuckolded young American man seeking revenge against a love rival, Rocky Raccoon was written in India by Paul McCartney in early 1968.
Paul [wrote it]. Couldn't you guess? Would I go to all that trouble about Gideon's Bible and all that stuff?
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
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.
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.
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.
A Hard Day's Write, Steve Turner
In the studio
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!"
on the harmonies at the end is that a females voice that i hear ?
yes, rumor is that it was linda McCartney
It can’t be Linda because he was still with Jane Asher then
I don’t know about Linda at this point, but by the mid July Jane had already announced that she and Paul were no longer together. This session took place a month later.
Jane broke off the engagement in July when she found Paul in bed with Francie.
I’ve long preferred the Anthology 3 version (Take 8), mainly because of McCartney’s accidental comingling of “smelling” and “stinking” after the instrumental, after which he just rolls with it:
The doctor came in
Sminking of gin (laughs) ‘Sminking?’
And proceeded to lie on the table
He was really sminking of gin
And it did him in in the end
Poor doc!
Meantime, back on the table
(Still makes me laugh every time I listen to it.)
“The doc walked in”, instead of not “came in” 😉
Txs for reminding me about the Anthologies!
The clever rhyming in this song is hilarious. (fancy-Nancy, etc.)
I love it, despite Paul’s rather weak, jokey American accent – a source of much amusement to my friends and I (who are also from the UK), whom, as kids would often say to each other “rocky din’ lach thacht!”, with the last two words in raw scouse… I guess you had to be there 😉
that female voice is Linda Eastman
The only Beatles’ song i can think of with the honky-tonk piano, just another one of those unconventional instuments featured on the White Album.
The piano playing at the very end of “Tomorrow Never Knows” sounds very honky-tonk or close to it anyway.
Once again (and completely overlooked) is the use of recording the piano at “half-speed” in order to create the chimey piano tone upon playback at normal speed. This would also explain the death-defying speed that George Martin achieved in his performance. It was an actual “tack” piano (possibly an upright) unlike the Boogie Woogie double-speed grand on “You Never Give Me Your Money” and the more famous use of double-speed piano – the baroque influenced solo on “In My Life.” To confirm the use of recording a piano at half speed, listen to a normal piano when slowed down to half it’s speed. It will have no clarity or dynamics. The piano (at half-speed) on all three of these songs not only has clarity, but you can now hear subtle mistakes (nuance) that are completely covered up when played back at normal speed.
I want to know if Rocky Raccoon dies. Is it obvious that he does? I wish not. One of my favorite Beatles song. I saw Paul from the front row in 2008!
Well the answer to that question might be found be answering this question – how much help did Gideon’s bible give to poor Rocky’s revival?
Congratulations
This music has inspired a legenday music here in Brazil, called ” Faroeste Caboclo” by the band Legião Urbana
I’ve always loved Paul’s story songs, and this is definitely no exception. I especially enjoy the humor he threw in there. Considering how great most of the White Album is, I still can’t say if I think this is a highlight, but I do really enjoy it.
I love the anthology version….probably because I’m from Minnesota. whatever, this is amazing, Paul knows how to rock.
I am a Liverpudlian and John, Paul, George and Ringo grew up close to where I grew up. Regardless of this fact, i had never heard this song before in my life until this weekend just gone when i was skiing in New Jersey and happened to have the good fortune of sharing the ski lift with a hansone if not rugged looking fellow called Eric, also from New Jersey, who was singing it on our way up the mountain. When he said it was a Beatles song i damn near fell off the lift!!
Some wonderful subtle wordplay in this song…
“I’ll be better, doc, as soon as I am able”: An amusing tautological statement if we read ‘able’ as ‘healthy’.
“To help with good Rocky’s revival”: On the face of it, ‘revival’ means ‘recovery’, but at the same time, it’s a wordplay on the phenomenon of a religious revival (e.g., when a religion which was out of fashion comes back into fashion, this is a “revival”).
Gee, I always thought it was “I’ll be better, doc, as soon as I am Mabel.” 😉
I’m surprised John played so many things on the song when once again, he was seething with contempt for it.
Was this the last time John played harmonica on a Beatles song?
Didn’t Ringo sing the beginning part? “Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota”
One of the first songs I ever learned on the guitar when I was about 12, I got my neighbour, John Renbourn, to show me how to play it, I think he hated the song too. I still love it though.
No it was Paul singing the intro. For some reason I thought it was Ringo.
Are you sure John overdubbed the harmonica? The instrument appears on the Anthology version, and the session has John playing six-stringed bass live; I think there’s a slight discrepancy here, as this claims that the harmonica was an overdub, but there’s no reason to believe the band would add a harmonica overdub on a take they weren’t going to use. I think either John played harmonica live with the bass, or someone else played harmonica/the six-string bass. Pretty small potatoes here, but I think we have a mystery!
I love the many “American” or “cowboy” references in this song.
1. Talking blues
2. Accent
3. Honky tonk piano
4. black mining hills of Dakota
5. Rocky Raccoon
6. guy (I don’t think they use that word in England too much)
7. “his woman”
8. saloon (In England they are called “pubs”)
9. Gideon’s Bible. I think they are only in the U.S.- put in hotel rooms. I imagine the Beatles got a big laugh when they stayed at US hotels and there was always a bible there.
10. gun. (In Great Britain, owning a gun is a very big deal. I understand that if you have one, they send a SWAT team to retrieve it! Beatles must find the US very gun-happy).
11. “shoot off the legs”. Violent US
12. called herself Lil; known as Nancy (Sounds like a Western)
13. hoedown. That’s like an American square dance, although my sister says that is a euphemism, and that they were in the next room making love.
14. showdown. Americanism?
15. revival. A pun on religious revival vs. recovering from gunshot. However, Protestant religious revival meetings are a uniquely American phenomenon. Probably Beatles found that amusing or interesting too.
“in the next room at the hoedown” I always heard the harmonica break after that line as bed-springs squeaking up and down.
To go with the cowboy motif, Paul should have had Rocky riding into town rather than walking.