The Doctor Came In Stinking Of Gin

The next song on the double LP/CD "The Beatles" (White Album) is an original Lennon/McCartney composition written mainly by Paul entitled "Rocky Raccoon". This "western" type cowboy-ish song was written while Paul was in India and is basically a four chord wonder which repeats itself throughout the tune.

The recording of the song was fairly simple and started and finished in one session. All of this took place on August 15 1968 from EMI studio two with Paul playing the acoustic guitar and singing, John on bass and Ringo on the drums. There were nine takes of the song and ninth take was used as the commercial version. The previous take (take 8) is available as on outtake on the Apple 3-LP/2-CD "Anthology 3".

Once the basic track was complete, John's original bass track was wiped and replaced by a bass track played by Paul. An extra hit on the snare drum was added by Ringo as an overdub as well. There was a tape reduction bringing the song to take 10 and overdubs included John Lennon playing some harmonica, George Martin played the tack piano solo in the middle of the song and John, Paul and George added some background vocals for the last verse.

Once this was completed, the song was finished and an attempt at a mono mix was done and completed on the same night as the recording from the control room of EMI studio two. A tape copy of the mono mix was given to both John and Paul. There is a version of this mono mix with additional talking at the beginning which is available on the so-called "Peter Sellers Tape" and can be found on the Swinging Pig CD "Unsurpassed Masters Volume 4".

On Friday August 23 1968, another tape copy of the mono mix was made from EMI Studio Two and given to Apple (four copies were taken away by Mal Evans).

The stereo mix for "Rocky Raccoon" was completed in one attempt on October 10 1968 from EMI studio two. This attempt was used on the commercial version. There are no major differences between the mono and stereo mixes.

"Rocky Raccoon" can be found on the Apple 2-LP/2-CD "The Beatles" (White Album). Some of the early Apple labels on the vinyl version have the song misspelled as "Rocky Racoon".