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1 May 2011
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Maybe Bill killed no one, the hero and gun shooter was Captain Marvel, and the mum butted in to save Bill’s pitiful embarrassing confession of having killed nothing having been taken by surprise. The children singing were actually teasing and mocking having found out or heard rumours of Bill freezing.
Why do I get a feeling of Jules in ‘Pulp Fiction’ working out who was the Good Shepherd?
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14 April 2010
Offline vonbontee said
meanmistermustard said
If Captain Marvel did the zapping and killed the tiger why do the children sing asking Bungalow Bill what he killed? Unless Captain Marvel is Bungalow Bill, some kind of superhero synonym, but everyone would have to know.To the extent that I’ve thought about it, I’ve always assumed that CM was indeed Bill himself, that the narrator is being contemptuous about how the cowardly Bill feels like a big man when he’s got his gun, and so the “Captain Marvel” appellation is sarcasm.
That was always my take on it as well.
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26 January 2017
Offline meanmistermustard said
Maybe Bill killed no one, the hero and gun shooter was Captain Marvel, and the mum butted in to save Bill’s pitiful embarrassing confession of having killed nothing having been taken by surprise. The children singing were actually teasing and mocking having found out or heard rumours of Bill freezing.
I like this take. Its like “Hey Bill, what did you kill in the jungle? O that’s right… nothing.” The sarcastic view seems a little more Johnish than having the two be the same person.
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14 April 2010
Offline sir walter raleigh said
meanmistermustard said
Maybe Bill killed no one, the hero and gun shooter was Captain Marvel, and the mum butted in to save Bill’s pitiful embarrassing confession of having killed nothing having been taken by surprise. The children singing were actually teasing and mocking having found out or heard rumours of Bill freezing.
I like this take. Its like “Hey Bill, what did you kill in the jungle? O that’s right… nothing.” The sarcastic view seems a little more Johnish than having the two be the same person.
Knowing what we do about John’s acerbic wit, that is possible. The part I don’t buy is John writing in a character who swoops in, kills a tiger and then is not mentioned again…or before, for that matter.
John’s explanation:
That was written about a guy in Maharishi’s meditation camp who took a short break to go shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to commune with God . There used to be a character called Jungle Jim and I combined him with Buffalo Bill. It’s a sort of teenage social-comment song and a bit of a joke.
Briefly inserting another character to do the deed would be like this in ‘Norwegian Wood ‘.
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told Marge I didn’t and crawled off to sleep in the bath.
To me, it makes more sense that John sarcastically referred to BB as Captain Marvel.
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6.08pm
27 February 2017
Offline As much as I adore the theory of the kids making fun of Bungalow Bill who actually is a coward I more agree with Zig.
If John indeed had written a song about a coward who didn’t kill anything and is, therefore, being treated like a loser then the message of the song would be that killing is a matter of honour and everyone who fails in a hunt is actually a failure herself/himself. On a more abstract level, one could also say that the song would be about criticising the fact that one always has to prove oneself to belong to society.
However, the actual song is clearly meant to be against violence and killing, imo. John’s comment on the song (as Zig posted on the above post) backs this further as he used words like ‘poor tiger’. He seems to judge Jungle Jim for his actions so it seems unlogical to me that he would suddenly write lyrics which criticise society and its expectations towards the individual member, instead.
It’s much more likely to me that with Bungalow Bill he wanted to paint the picture of a coldblooded, bloodthirsty hunter, just the way he perceived Jungle Jim. So I personally think Captain Marvel and Bill are one.
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Personally, I like it but it’s a bit of a John throwaway.
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18 March 2013
Offline I was driving a friend back up to college on Sunday, and I haven’t listened to The White Album in full in I’d say about 3 years so I chucked it into the CD player. My friend knows all of the hits but has never listened through a full Beatles’ album so she got a baptism of fire with TWA*.
Anyhoo, Bungalow Bill I don’t rate particularly highly as a track. It goes on for far too long and gets a bit repetitive…however, on the drive I realised it’s a bloody great singalong song. By the time the 2nd chorus came around, both my passenger and I were going “Heyyyy Bungalow Bill *hand gestures* What did ya kill? Bungalow Bill, heyyyyyyyyyyy….”. Very catchy, so I now have a new found love for Bill that I didn’t originally have.
*She was also amused about all of the facts I had for each song like Paul’s bass line in I Will , drumming on Dear Prudence , Manson family murders and finger bleeding for Helter Skelter , Why Don’t We Do It… and monkeys etc.
It’s I think, the only Beatle album where there really is something interesting to say for every track.
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1.06pm
22 December 2013
Offline meanmistermustard said
Tough one for me; ‘Julia ‘ or ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill ‘.Julia is actually shorter in song length yet feels so long when listened to. Both are dull.
What I appreciate most about both of these recordings are that they don’t really stray too far away from their Esher demo origins… in fact, one could easily imagine them being recorded in India previous to that while basking in their purest forms… ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill ‘ is Fabulous… ‘Julia ‘ is Poignant Lennon… pre-Plastic Ono and pre-Beatles just the same… post-Beatles not out of the realm either… compare it with ‘Mother ‘ from a couple years later and you see John suspended between the two extreme outlooks… The Beginnings of John’s much talked about “White Period” in 1968 were venturing deeper into a purer form of expression that would be more fully explored over the coming years… A blank canvass… ‘Two Virgins ‘… large white bags even…
Don’t know if anyone’s mentioned it yet, but the guitar intro to ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill ‘ is one of the absolute peaks of the entire ‘White Album ‘… this one couldn’t be duplicated by ANYONE… I mean… what on Earth was that?!…:-)
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15 February 2015
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You don’t mean Wild Honey Pie , do you? (I can’t stand it.)
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1.59pm
26 January 2017
Offline From Joe’s article on the song
The Spanish guitar introduction, as noted by Mark Lewisohn in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, was recorded separately and later edited onto the song. It is likely that this took place during The Beatles’ only 24-hour session, spread over 16 and 17 October, during which a number of edit pieces and crossfades for the White Album were finalised.
The guitar flourish was one of a number of seven-second instrument samples included on the Mellotron Mark II. The identity of the guitarist is said to have been Eric Cook, an Australian session musician, although this is unconfirmed.
I can’t remember when I first noticed that intro, but it is so good. A nice transition piece.
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15 February 2015
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Billy Rhythm said
Don’t know if anyone’s mentioned it yet, but the guitar intro to ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill ‘ is one of the absolute peaks of the entire ‘White Album ‘… this one couldn’t be duplicated by ANYONE… I mean… what on Earth was that?!…:-)
So… if it’s Wild Honey Pie , then that makes sense (What on Earth was that?!), but if it’s the Spanish guitar bit, then that seems immensely ironic, because it was a sample which makes it, conceivably, quite possible to duplicate. 
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9.23pm
22 December 2013
Offline Beatlebug said
So… if it’s Wild Honey Pie , then that makes sense (What on Earth was that?!), but if it’s the Spanish guitar bit, then that seems immensely ironic
Can’t wrap my mind around any better way to say “the guitar intro to ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill‘”… your CD defective or something? How about the opening seconds of ‘Track 6’?
Beatlebug said
it was a sample which makes it, conceivably, quite possible to duplicate.
Sure… anyone could spin the “opening seconds of ‘Track 6′” of the ‘White Album ‘ and claim to “duplicate” the moment… but stick one of them cheap Classical six-strings into your hands around a campfire without any technological aids and let’s see how well you do… “quite possible” takes on a whole new meaning…:-)
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17 December 2012
Offline Billy Rhythm said
Sure… anyone could spin the “opening seconds of ‘Track 6′” of the ‘White Album ‘ and claim to “duplicate” the moment… but stick one of them cheap Classical six-strings into your hands around a campfire without any technological aids and let’s see how well you do… “quite possible” takes on a whole new meaning…:-)
What @Beatlebug is pointing out, @Billy Rhythm, is this (from Joe’s article):
The guitar flourish was one of a number of seven-second instrument samples included on the Mellotron Mark II. The identity of the guitarist is said to have been Eric Cook, an Australian session musician, although this is unconfirmed.
Anybody with a Mellotron Mark II could duplicate the moment, as they did, because they had a Mellotron Mark II. It is a sample. If you’d prefer, a sound effect, not unlike the airplane noise on Back In The USSR or “Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine…” from you know where.
How they used it was unique to them, but the actual “moment” is not, unlike say the orchestra crescendos in A Day In The Life , something they created, but was something they found and made clever use of.
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22 December 2013
Offline Ron Nasty said
What @Beatlebug is pointing out, @Billy Rhythm, is this (from Joe’s article):
The guitar flourish was one of a number of seven-second instrument samples included on the Mellotron Mark II. The identity of the guitarist is said to have been Eric Cook, an Australian session musician, although this is unconfirmed.
Anybody with a Mellotron Mark II could duplicate the moment, as they did, because they had a Mellotron Mark II. It is a sample. If you’d prefer, a sound effect, not unlike the airplane noise on Back In The USSR or “Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine…” from you know where.
How they used it was unique to them, but the actual “moment” is not, unlike say the orchestra crescendos in A Day In The Life , something they created, but was something they found and made clever use of.
While you guys want to focus on the “who dunnit” here… I stand by the “this one couldn’t be duplicated by ANYONE” statement I made earlier… it’s a Stellar Peace of Work… regardless of the who, or what was jotted down on a bit of paper with EMI letterhead by whomever… every Now And Then someone may hit most of the notes but they can’t replicate the feel… coincidentally… the “feel” aspect has yet to be accurately documented by Anybody, and good luck trying… nice to see you guys getting fired up about Beatles’ records again… the song does its best to maintain the excellence of the superb opening, but perhaps there’s where it falls short… this one blows ‘Anytime At All’ or ‘Tell Me What You See ‘ out of the water… yet another true Original…:-)
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24 March 2014
Offline I think probably George would be the only Beatle able to replicate not only all the notes but also the feel of that sample.
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14 June 2016
Offline Not my favourite Beatles song or anything, but I still like it. It’s still catchy, and the subject matter is pure John.
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7 May 2017
Offline This song contains a favorite Yoko moment. In the line, “If looks could kill it would have been us instead of him,” I always look forward to the way she, to my ears, nails the word “us.” It may sound like I’m damning with faint praise, but I’m not. Every time I hear the word, I think a good thought about her.
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15 May 2015
Offline Heath said
This song contains a favorite Yoko moment. In the line, “If looks could kill it would have been us instead of him,” I always look forward to the way she, to my ears, nails the word “us.” It may sound like I’m damning with faint praise, but I’m not. Every time I hear the word, I think a good thought about her.
Yeah I’ve always liked Yoko’s participation in that song; she sounds like a deranged falsetto, which fits well (although I never knew she was singing in that song until my friend told me several years ago — I said “No way, really?” He said, “Yeah, I saw it on this website called ‘Beatles Bible’…”).
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14 April 2010
Offline Timothy said
Not my favourite Beatles song or anything, but I still like it. It’s still catchy, and the subject matter is pure John.
Agreed. The way he tells the story is Lennon through and through.
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24 March 2014
Offline Hearing Ringo’s voice over the others in the chorus is nice. Seems like they enjoyed the session.
I like it. It’s a fun little song. Kinda minimalistic and/or lofi in the arrangement, and the lyrics… fun, fun.
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