Song of the Day 12/4: The Beatles, “Rocky Racoon”

Things are so bad in this country that even the wildlife is getting hammered. A liquor store in Virginia was ransacked by a raccoon that was found passed out drunk on a bathroom floor.

This comes on the heels of a report in Scientific American that urban raccoons are showing signs of domesticating themselves. Now they’re picking up bad human habits like eating garbage and getting blackout drunk. Next thing you know they’ll be voting Republican.

The protagonist of Paul McCartney’s Western-themed novelty song wasn’t an actual raccoon, he explained at one point, just a guy in a coonskin cap (Europeans always give odd twists to myths of the Old West). It’s considered among the lesser tunes on the White Album, best appreciated by those who take it in the joking spirit McCartney intended. “I was basically spoofing the folksinger,” he once said. “I just tried to keep it amusing, really.”

“I was sitting on the roof in India with a guitar – John and I were sitting ’round playing guitar, and we were with Donovan. And we were just sitting around enjoying ourselves, and I started playing the chords of ‘Rocky Raccoon,’ you know, just messing around. And, oh, originally it was Rocky Sassoon – and we just started making up the words, you know, the three of us, and started just to write them down. They came very quickly. And eventually I changed it from Sassoon to Raccoon, because it sounded more like a cowboy.”

The honky-tonk piano is played by George Martin, the harmonica by John Lennon, the last time he played one on a Beatles record.

In honor of XPN’s Cover Songs Countdown, here’s one I’ll guarantee doesn’t make the list: Richie Havens, in his own trademark style, treating “Rocky Raccoon” not as an amusing novelty song but an actual tragic ballad.