Robert Service meets The Beatles

[Stephen Whiteside]

I was listening to Rocky Racoon on the way home from the Quinty Festival this evening, and a penny finally dropped that has been wobbling in my mind for some time.

Rocky Racoon is a rip-off of the Robert Service poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew"! The characters of the former are "Dan" and "Lil", and in the latter they are "Dan" and "Lou". The mood and subject matter of the two are also very similar.

I'm onto something here, surely? Vic, you're the RS expert. What do you think?

[Stephen Whiteside]

Found this on:
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=159

I've always been curious if this song was somehow inspired by Robert Service's poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" which was published in 1907 in Canada. If you have not read the poem check it out- there are many similarities.
- eric, Tucson, AZ