John Lennon said a song from The Beatles’ The White Album has some social commentary. It’s also supposed to be a joke. Is it a funny joke? Well, that’s a dicey question we’ll be looking at all these years later.
John Lennon said a song from The Beatles’ ‘White Album’ was inspired by tigers’ deaths
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John was asked about “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.” “Oh, 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,” John recalled.
“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. Yoko’s on that one, I believe, singing along.” If nothing else, “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” paved the way for future musical collaborations between John and Yoko.
‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’ isn’t as beloved as another ‘White Album’ song
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It’s obvious from listening to “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” that it’s supposed to be a joke. The cadence of the song is comic. However, is it really all that funny? Is the punchline — the death of a tiger — really that good? I suppose that all comes down to one’s feelings about animal rights.
However, it’s clear that “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” didn’t strike a chord with a wider audience. It hasn’t inspired many covers, and the popularity if a Beatles song can generally be measured by how many artists have recorded it. Perhaps “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” is too strange to inspire covers. On the other hand, “Helter Skelter” is another oddball song from the same album and it’s been recorded by Mötley Crüe, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, and numerous other heavy metal acts.
How The Beatles’ ‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’ performed on the pop charts
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“The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” was never a single, so it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune appeared on The White Album. That record reached the pinnacle of the Billboard 200 for nine weeks, staying on the chart for 215 weeks.
According to The Official Charts Company, “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” did not chart in the United Kingdom either. There, The White Album was No. 1 for eight weeks, staying on the chart for 37 weeks altogether. Upon rerelease in the 1980s, the album hit No. 18 and spent another two weeks on the chart. It feels odd to think that American audiences were so much more interested in The White Album than British audiences were. Perhaps the continuing interest in the album’s association with the Manson Family made more Americans want to listen to it out of morbid fascination.
“The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” isn’t an essential Beatles track but it proves the band was willing to take chances.
