On Mar 2, 2010, at 2:16 AM, TurquoiseB wrote:
Speaking as the only person here who seems to have actually *met* Nancy Cooke de Herrera and her son Rick Cooke, my impression when the song came out shortly after I met and interacted with them was that the Beatles just *nailed* it. *Especially* the bit about Nancy's behavior when someone challenged her hey-I'm-the-center-of-attention-here-not-you- ness or laughed at her son. The tiger hunt was pre-arranged. It was a tiger hunt. The guns they carried were their own, brought along with them to Teacher Training. They left the course *in the middle of it* to go on the hunt, because that was the only "time slot" they could book and the hunt meant more to them than Maharishi did. They *bragged* about this to a stranger (moi) before the Beatles song came out. Afterwards, they changed their story. That's who you're dealing with.
Mia Farrow seems to also nail her, and her son, in her Autobio, as does Lennon in his Playboy interview. For me she just sounded like a typical naive, wealthy TMers, who even after being dissed by her guru, continues to speak praises for him and self-importantly imagines herself as some emissary of the Marshy's mythical Wedic tradition. An old friend was on this course, but I never thought to ask him of this incident:
This song mocks the actions of a young American named Richard A. Cooke III, known as Rik who was visiting his mother, Nancy Cooke de Herrera, at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh at the same time that the Beatles were staying with the Maharishi. According to his mother, both she and her son maintained friendly relations with all of the Beatles except for Lennon, who by Cooke de Herrera's account was "a genius" but distant and contemptuous of the wealthy American Cooke de Herrera and her clean-cut, college-attending son. According to Nancy's life account, Beyond Gurus, the genesis of the song occurred when she, Rik, and several others, including native guides, set out upon elephants to hunt for a tiger (allegedly presented by their Indian guide as a traditional act). The pack of elephants was attacked by a tiger, which was shot by Rik. Rik was initially proud of his quick reaction and posed for a photograph with his prize. However, Rik's reaction to the slaying was mixed, as he has not hunted since. Nancy claims that all present recognised the necessity of Rik's action, but that John Lennon's reaction was scornful and sarcastic, asking Rik: "But wouldn't you call that slightly life-destructive?" The song was written by Lennon as mocking what he saw as Rik's bravado and unenlightened attitude.[2]
Lennon later told his version of the story in a Playboy interview, stating that: "‘Bungalow Bill’ 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 sort of a teenage social-comment song and a bit of a joke."[3] Mia Farrow, who was also at the ashram during the period supports Lennon's story in her autobiography; she writes, "Then a self-important, middle-aged American woman arrived, moving a mountain of luggage into the brand- new private bungalow next to Maharishi's along with her son, a bland young man named Bill. People fled this newcomer, and no one was sorry when she left the ashram after a short time to go tiger hunting, unaware that their presence had inspired a new Beatles' song - 'Bungalow Bill.'"[4]
