Rocky Raccoon

"Rocky Racoon" is a song by The Beatles. It was included on The White Album. It was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

Credits
Paul McCartney – vocals, acoustic guitar

John Lennon – backing vocals, harmonica, harmonium, 6-string bass

George Harrison– backing vocal

Ringo Starr – drums

George Martin – piano

Composistion
The song was written whilst the Beatles were on retreat (in Maharishi's camp in India, the Beatles went there in 1968 to study transcendental meditation) by Paul McCartney. The song is in the key of C Major, with an 8-bar chord progression, (AM7, D7sus4, D7, G7, C and C/B) which runs throughout.

McCartney told Mojo about the song: "Rocky was me writing (speaks-sings in a baccy-chewing old prospector voice), 'It was way back in the hills of Dakota-or Arkansas-in the mining days. And it was tough, picking shovels, and we were underground 24 hours a day…' I could have taken this serious route, researched it- Take This Hammer (a prison work song recorded by British skiffle star Lonnie Donegan in 1959), stuff I'd been brought up on. But at that point I was a little tongue-in cheek. So I crossed it with a (British singer and banjo player popular in the 1940s) George Formby sensibility, where John and I would go (sings a bit of doggerel in a choppy rhythm)- Stanley Holloway, Albert in The Lion's Den (the comic poem The Lion and Albert, written by Holloway's creative partner Marriott Edgar in 1932). We were very versed in all that stuff (sings opening lines of Rocky Raccoon in the same choppy way). The scanning of the poetical stanza always interested me. Somehow this little story unfolded itself. I was basically spoofing 'the folk-singer.' And it included Gideon's Bible, which I've seen in every hotel I've ever been in. You open the drawer and there it is! Who's this guy Gideon! I still don't know to this day who the heck he is. I'm sure he's a very well-meaning guy. Rocky Raccoon was a freewheeling thing, the fun of mixing a folky ramble with Albert In The Lion's Den with its ''orse's 'ead 'andle,' ha ha."

Lyrics
Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota,

There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon(na)

And one day his woman ran off with another guy

Hit young Rocky in the eye

Rocky didn't like that he said I'm gonna get that boy

so one day he walked into town

Booked himself a room in the local saloon

Rock Raccoon checked into his room

Only to find Gideon's bible

Rocky had come equipped with a gun

to shoot off the legs of his rival

His rival it seems had broken his dreams

By stealing the girl of his fancy

Her name was Magill, and she called herself Lil

But everyone knew her as Nancy

Now she and her man who called himself Dan

Were in the next room at the hoe-down

Rocky burst in and grinning a grin

He said Danny boy this is a show down

Daniel was hot he drew first and shot

And Rocky collapsed in the corner

Da, da, da, da, da

Now the doctor came in stinking of gin

And proceeded to lie on the table

He said Rocky you met your match

And Rocky said, Doc it's only a scratch

And I'll be better

I'll be better doc as soon as I am able

And now Rocky Raccoon he fell back in his room

only to find Gideon's bible

Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt

To help with good Rocky's revival

Ah, oh yeah, yeah

Da, da, da, da