The Beatles - Rocky Raccoon
Written by: Lennon-McCartney. 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.
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
The song was originally titled Rocky Sassoon, but was changed by McCartney to make the main character sound “more like a cowboy”. McCartney is said to have got the idea for the drunken doctor from an road accident he was involved with in 1966.
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.
