Okay so I am acknowledging the fact that this is stupid quesion, but I’m curious…
What the hell is Rocky Racoon (in the Beatles song)?
We know that “the girl of his fancy”, Nancy (or Magil, but she calls herself Lil), is just that, a Girl.
And they say that the man who stole Rocky’s dreams, Danny, was a man. (lyrics: Danny boy was hot, he drew first and shot).
Its just I get this really funny cartoon image of a giant Racoon, going to some hotel saloon to shoot of the legs of his rival… Some please help me get this image out of my head!
Rocky Raccoon is a children’s nonsense song, like Octopus’s garden. It’s not supposed to make sense. (Something that is probably easier to achieve if you’re partaking of certain illicit substances.)
And your extracts don’t prove that Nancy (I think it’s Nancy McGill, but she calls herself Lil) or Danny are human. After all, I talk about my girl kitty and my boy kitty. Those terms can be used to indicate gender, in a non-technical sort of way.
I love the Beatles, but trying to analyze their lyrics is going to make you crazy. McCartney’s especially tend to be rather…what’s the technical musical term?
I doubt if anyone can say, with any exactitude, what was going on in the altered synapses of Lennon/McCartney in the late sixties. However, it has always been my perception that RR was a man. Does anybody think that Buffalo Bill was really an American Bison who produced a world famous wild west show?
ZYADA:
Point taken about the girl/boy thing… intriguing!
JAYRON 32:
Ouch! Dude, I’m bored at work… a half an hour seems like an eternity when you hate your job and live for SDMB, but okay, I learn to be patient
No problem. I entirely understand about being bored at work. When I get bored I get testy, as you can see through my response. Good to see you have a sense of humor though. I always hate the people who ask a question, and then get upset when no one answers. Like it’s everyone elses duty to tell them the answer.
In all seriousness towards your OP: My best guess is that Rocky Racoon is so named because it rhymed. Most rock song plots turn out the way the do to fit the rhyme rather than the reason.
It’s the bleedin’ “White Album”…it’s the friggin’ Beatles.
They were musical gods. That doesn’t mean everything had to make sense.
Look around you. Does the “real” world make sense?
I think not.
Case closed.
Peace,
TN*Hippie
I was always under the impression that Rocky was just a guy with an unusual name. (IIRC: “Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota there lived a young boy named Rocky Racoo-oon.”)
I will confess that I never gave a second thought to Liverpudlians writing cowboy songs until just recently. I was listening to Firesign Theater’s “Nick Danger, Third Eye” which has numerous references to the White Album and particularly to Rocky Raccoon when suddenly it struck my like the wet kiss at the end of a hot fist: “Why would Paul McCartney know any more about cowboys than I do? And, how do I make my voice do this?”
Damn, pluto, here I was going to fabricate some tale of what “Rocky Raccoon” referred to, based on “Nick Danger”, only you posted about it first. I’d say, “Okay, everybody, into the time machine!”, except that we’re the only ones who’d get the joke. (Maybe yes, maybe no.)
I say D’oh! (suppose to sound like Homer Simpson)
Silly me, I forgot about the whole begining verse of the song, before they start singing- (blush- about starting a usless thread)
Well I guess, now I know… but since I am bored at my stupied pointless job (tomorrow is my last day-yippee!), I will continue thinking that Rocky is a big giant racoon, who’s heart broken, and wounded---- ahhh, such happy thoughts!
So Jayron 32-- is bunglow bill a big house or what?
I can’t believe I completely missed this thread till the OP was answered. sigh
I have found lots of stories behind different songs. Reasons why the songs were or were not written. But in my extensive research I have never found a single reason for Paul writing Rocky Racoon.
And most of the songs on The White Album were NOT drug induced…ok, some of John’s were. He was on heroin at the time. But the other three were on a “natural high” after their retreat in India. That’s where they wrote all the songs for The White Album.
There, even though I wasn’t able to give an answer to the original question, I still managed to insert SOME Beatles history
Yea, I’ve been in those “natural High” states… but college at a hippie school showed me that the herbal highs are fun too…
Oh crap, is that police sirens I hear? :eek:
Well, I’m not sure when Rocky and Bullwinkle first aired so I could be completely off, but I always assumed that the song was inspired by Rocky Racoon from the cartoon.
And, as for all you silly people, the Beatles didn’t do drugs. Don’t you know that only users lose drugs?
The Beatles sung about mundane everyday happenings, much in the way that Seinfeld was written. Why, just the other day I was sitting on a corn flake waiting for some friends to pick me up (they got this really cool van you see). They dropped me off at the train station and as I went through the turnstyle, I saw this chick with these eyes you wouldn’t believe, looked like kaleidescopes. I thought that might make a nice song.
