Composition
The song, a folk rock ballad, is titled from the character's name, which was originally "Rocky Sassoon", but McCartney changed it to "Rocky Raccoon" because he thought "it sounded more like a cowboy." Former 13th Floor Elevators' drummer Danny Thomas claims the name "Rocky" was inspired by Roky Erickson, the American rock band's then vocalist and guitarist. The Old West-style honky-tonk piano was played by producer George Martin. The lyrics describe a conflict over a love triangle.
During take 8 of the song (featured on Anthology 3), Paul McCartney flubbed the line "stinking of gin", singing "sminking" instead. This caused him to laugh, exclaim "Sminking?!" and make up the remaining lines in the song. This take also has a noticeably different spoken-word introduction, with Rocky coming from "a little town in Minnesota", rather than the album version's "black mountain hills out Dakota", and McCartney's faux-Western accent is more pronounced.
In Mojo magazine in October, 2008, McCartney acknowledged that the style of the song is a pastiche, saying, "I was basically spoofing the folksinger." Lennon attributed the song to Paul, saying "Couldn't you guess? Would I have gone to all that trouble about Gideon's Bible and all that stuff?"
"Rocky Raccoon" was the last Beatle song to feature John Lennon's harmonica playing.
Read more about this topic: Rocky Raccoon
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)
“Boswell, when he speaks of his Life of Johnson, calls it my magnum opus, but it may more properly be called his opera, for it is truly a composition founded on a true story, in which there is a hero with a number of subordinate characters, and an alternate succession of recitative and airs of various tone and effect, all however in delightful animation.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)