In its heyday, Python LPs entered the public consciousness more than the TV shows ever could and, to that end, are responsible for the party-line opinion perpetuated by younger comedians that '80% of Python was rubbish'. The dissenters in question were of course too young to appreciate Flying Circus when it was transmitted and, in the days before expensive video recorders were commonplace, could only enjoy the aural side of Python. Items like 'Parrot Sketch', 'Nudge Nudge', and 'Lumberjack Song' became regarded as 'classics' on account of their ubiquitous vinyl presence, not because a mass audience at the time recognised the 'sporadic genius' of the television originals.
The LPs are fantastic of course, and represent a glory age of comedy albums - the days when
performers took an interest in designing and promoting their own work. These days, the best you're
likely to get are some hastily-dubbed television soundtracks, around which is wrapped a
pleb-pleasing generic inlay-card designed by a disinterested trainee 'fully convergent with Photoshop'.
Well, that's enough soapbox - bring on the edits...
1. It is a popular misconception that the first Python album (Monty Python's Flying Circus, 1970) is dubbed from the television soundtracks (a belief which contributes to the easily-debunked myth that the early Python shows were received 'silently' by 'baffled' audiences): in fact, the album was specially-recorded for audio at The Paris, London (the famed venue in London which, until 1995, was where most BBC Radio shows were recorded. No longer there, sadly)
The poor audience response can be blamed (a) on the size and age-range of those in attendance, and (b) the fact that it was recorded during a sweltering heatwave. The BBC who re-released the LP in 1993 as part of its Radio Collection, added a gormless sleevenote, claiming that the album contains 'all the favourite sketches' from 'the original series' which doesn't help matters.
Some biographers claim that the audience was 'uninvited' and didn't feature any core Monty Python fans. Quite why this happened has never been made clear but the results were frustrating, for the listener and the participants. By the end of the first series, Flying Circus had acquired an audience which knew exactly where Python was coming from and were hungry for more. The recording of this LP saw the Pythons taking a step backwards. The audience response is genial but none-too-enthusiastic and the whole thing comes across like a poorly-received radio show. This shouldn't have been the case as audiences for comedy shows like I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again (which featured John Cleese and actually was still running around this time) always got terrific responses.
Tentatively thought out, the recording features very few jokey references to the medium of either radio recordings or gramophone records (when compared to the convention-rippings of the televisual medium in Flying Circus). The only such jokes being Cleese's' "End of side one..." (at the end of side one) and a sequence where Graham Chapman's 'Colonel' gives a demonstration to test whether the listener's stereo is in phase - a send up of the various stereo test LPs available at the time.
The story goes that the Pythons only learned, upon arriving at the studio, that the recording was to be monaural (why? Couldn't the BBC run to two-track?). The 'stereo test' routine was still used however - Chapman is heard marching 'from left to right', growing ever more distant as he does so. It isn't known whether the script as originally written for stereo ended thusly.
It is unclear whether the Pythons had intended to present the script as an audio version of the TV show. There is for instance no 'Liberty Bell' (or indeed any sig tune at all) and only a passing attempt to provide any kind linking narrative. The LP also ends rather abruptly after the explosion which tags 'Self Defence'.
The album also contains some poor script-editing. Not only does 'Nudge Nudge' not include the fantastic "She sometimes goes, yes" line, but Pet Shop also omits one of its strongest exchanges - namely, "This parrot wouldn't
voom if you put four million volts through it". The ending of 'Buying A Bed' meanwhile seems like a deliberate attempt to confuse an already baffled audience, with the final "We want a mattress..." cutting, after a fashion, straight to 'Interesting People'. The original "It's my only line!" tag of course wouldn't have worked (the wife character had to be given at least peripheral lines in the audio version otherwise nobody would know she was there!) but why an alternate punchline, or at least a better way of linking to the next item, couldn't have been written is a mystery.
[NOTE (1): According to BBC producer Andy Foster, the mastertape of the LP was missing-presumed-lost for many years until it turned up, unlabelled, in a drawer. It is not clear precisely when this discovery was made, or indeed if it isn't just another example of an apocryphal 'found in a skip' story of the sort that keeps the Yorkshire Grey bubbling with usable anecdotes on slower days. Foster asserts that the woman who opened the drawer was working for the BBC Radio Collection's 'Canned Laughter' division (who issued the album on cassette in 1993), but this doesn't explain how the LP was given a CD release in 1985. Was the original CD-pressing dubbed from vinyl?]
[NOTE (2): The 1970 cover design (featuring the crashing foot framed inside a television set) was original an Gilliam collage, and the same picture was also used for the first CD release. For the 1993 cassette version (and the 1998 CD/cassette re-issue), the cover was replaced with a blander, non-copyright version of the same design - in fact, the same illustration which had been used on the BBC's Flying Circus 'Killer Sheep' video. This was presumably a legal decision - or possibly just cheaper to use a design they already had cluttering up the art room.]
[NOTE (3): The 1993 and 1998 re-issues were dumbed down in other ways. The (real) newspaper cuttings which had adorned the original back sleeve were absent, and many of the original sketch-titles were given alternative, pleb-pleasing names: 'Television Interviews' became 'Arthur Two Sheds', 'Trade Description Act' became 'Crunchy Frog' and 'Pet Shop' became 'Dead Parrot Sketch' (as if we're meant to assume that the other tracks aren't 'sketches' at all but candid real life documentary footage).]
2. Somewhat dismayed by the results of the first LP, the Pythons dispensed with the BBC's services and set up their own sideline to release product under the Python banner. The first LP was Another Monty Python Record (1971) which discarded the use of an audience in favour of studio-recorded sketches. This is a slight misnomer however as the LP was recorded in the outside shed of producer Andre Jacquemin. The results were a definite improvement and set the pattern for the (albeit non-shed-based) LPs that followed.
The American (Buddha Records) release of Another Monty Python Record was a longer edit than its British counterpart, and featured re-recorded versions of 'Penguin On The TV' and 'Communist Quiz' as well as new linking material like 'A Book At Bedtime read by Mr N.D. Gumby' (following the 'Cherry Orchard' sketch), together with a brief new link from Cleese, an extra apology concerning the Norwegian carpenters' intrusion, an amusing item by Palin as an angry telephone-caller complaining about all the communists on the record, and a slightly revised running order. The edit was also generally looser, and there were many unnecessary pauses, footsteps and door-opening sound effects (especially during 'Spanish Inquisition') which were substantially tightened up for Charisma Records' UK release. Buddha Records also insisted upon including a tracklisting, which seemed out of keeping with the presentation. This American edit is the version currently available through Virgin Chattering Classics.
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[NOTE: At the 1997 reunion at the Aspen Comedy Festival, Terry Gilliam mentioned an plan he once suggested for Flying Circus which would involve turning the soundtrack down very slowly throughout a show (forcing the viewers to continually turn up the volume of their TV sets) until, when the level had dropped almost as low as it would go, they'd suddenly make the loudest noise possible, causing people all over the country to dive behind sofas. The BBC refused this proposal, but Another Monty Python Record appears to adopt it - the volume does appear to drop during the apologetic Terry Jones dialogue in 'Be A Great Actor', only
to rise dramatically for the 'All Quiet On The Western Front' fanfare which follows. However, being the worst-mixed of all the Python LPs, it could equally be accidental...]
3. Monty Python's Previous Record (1972) was recorded at Radio Luxembourg (12-13/10/72), a step up from the shed-bound sessions of the previous record (as it were), with production now undertaken by Alan Bailey (who would also produce the next two albums,
Matching Tie and Handkerchief and
Monty Python Live At The Theatre Royal Drury Lane). The LP was, again, a mixture of TV material and new stuff and included another song about a
'Half a Bee' (different to the one cut from Series 3 of
Flying Circus), not to mention the
"What a silly bunt!" line from '
Travel Agent' presented in all its uncensored glory.
4. Previous Record's Idle-written quiz show parody ("What do you (CLANG CUCKOO)?") had already been aired for two pre-Flying Circus projects - firstly in I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again (Series 2, Show 10, 16/05/66) and in Do Not Adjust Your Set (Series 1, Show number unknown). You can hear the ISIRTA performance by Graeme Garden et al here.
5. Palin's final, mumbled line at the close of the 'Travel Agent' sketch (at 25'15, just before Terry Jones' final overdubbed cry of "For God's sake, take it off!") is inaudible to the casual listener, but can be heard more clearly using stereo phase reversal (which renders Idle sounding like he's down the corridor and Jones almost absent from the mix). Palin appears to mutter "kill him, fuck it, at least I'm...(something)" and a slight "Okay..." just before the record scrape. It isn't clear whether or not he's still in character at this point - if anything it sounds like the "kill him... alludes to the tape of Idle's relentless monologue.
6. The line "What a stupid concept!" at the end of 'Argument Clinic' cuts off at 'conce...', suggesting another line followed immediately afterwards and perhaps overlapped Palin's line slightly. In the version of the sketch (Series 3, Show 3 - 02/11/72), a Scotland Yard detective enters the room (capping a running joke throughout the episode), and it is possible that the team originally planned to use this running joke on the LP too. The sketch is cut off similarly
abruptly on the compilation albums Instant Record Collection (1977) and 6The Final Rip Off (1987).
7. A lot of the incidental music used on Previous Record was published by Studio G, a library music company which had been in business since the 60s (and continues to thrive today - their webpage can be found at http://www.studiog.co.uk). The track 'Comic Giggles' by Johnny Pearson which is used in the Python sketch 'Silly Noises' was also used by Kenny Everett as the sig tune to his 1972 Radio 4 Christmas show Everett On Everett. The Python edit is however submerged under a multitude of extra sound effects.
8. Matching Tie and Handkerchief (1973) is generally agreed to be the best mixed and most aurally inventive of the Python LPs (although John Cleese, in an interview given by members of the team to Melody Maker ('Melody Maker Band Breakdown' by Chris Welch, 22nd December 1973) moaned about it slightly, suggesting that it had been written and recorded in a hurry. It also features the famous double-banded grooves on Side Two -two separate grooves, each featuring different material - a trick which had hitherto only ever been attempted on 78 rpm discs.
Jones, speaking in the same Melody Maker article, suggested that they'd originally wanted to try the device on Previous Record with four seperate grooves but were thwarted by technical difficulties: 'They kept running into each other, and eventually you'd get a breakthrough effect, and you'd get all the tracks at once. When we tried it before, we had the disc cutters in London in despair. Apparently the new cutting machines are too sophisticated, and they needed an old Scully machine, which has a manually operated pitch. EMI thought they had an old one in the attic, but eventually George Peckham cut it for us.' Packham, ex-member of 60s group The Fourmost, is better known to Python vinyl fans as 'Porky', the famed record cutter who'd make his mark by scratching cryptic messages into the run-off grooves of LPs under his command. These were known as 'Porky Prime Cuts'. Interviewed in Q Magazine (August 1989), he remembered: 'Matching Tie and Handkerchief album was a bit of a bastard. Mike Palin came down and said he wanted to cut this one track with a double groove so you put the record on and depending which groove the needle fell into, you'd get one of two tracks. Ten goes that took. A right bugger of a red eye job. I think I wrote, 'Dear Mum, Please Send Another Cuppa Down, Still Cutting The Python LP, Love Porky XX' on that one.'
[NOTE: Great anecdote, but in fact the 'Dear Mum...' message appears on Contractual Obligation Album (at least on our copy(s)). Matching Tie's message was a simple 'Porky - Ray Adventure'.]
When Matching Tie... was re-released on vinyl by Virgin in 1988 they evidently thought the double banded grooves were more trouble than they were worth and instead presented the two chunks of Side 2 material on one groove (with an uncharacteristic gap in the middle). Due to an annoying side effect of the double groove trick the collective Side 2 material didn't exactly match the running time of Side 1 (so despite the 'extra side' the LP is actually a bit shorter than it should be!). To that end Virgin also restructured the LP for conventional release, hacking off two and a half minutes from the end of Side 1 (everything from Palin's "Before the next joke there will be a short raspberry" - which was part of the preceding 'Wasp Club' silliness - up to and including the 'Great Actors' interview) and presenting it as the first part of Side 2. Normally such surgery was only performed when there was a simultaneous cassette release - record companies used to get a bit shirty about mismatching timings - but we've no idea whether it was actually re-released on this format.
Unfortunately by the time of the CD release, the amended structure had become recognised as 'official' and it is still presented in this revised form.
[NOTE: Not that it makes much difference to general listening pleasure - the Python LPs on CD aren't given any sort of individual track indexing, aside from Track 1 and Track 2 to denote their respective sides. Also, the 'tracklisting' that accompanies each in the booklet is usually a list of the library music, with copyright information. Not that we're necessarily complaining about the latter.]
9. The last line of
Matching Tie...'s
'Word Association' monologue appears to have baffled whoever transcribed it for the John Cleese scriptbook
The Collected Skits Of Muriel Volestrangler FRS & Bar (Methuen, 1985). The
line is
"...the very meaning of life itselfish bastard I'll kick him in the Balls Pond Road", but the script transcribes it as 'I'll kick him in the balls...etc'
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Matching Tie And Handkerchief - insert |
10. Matching Tie And Handkerchief's original LP cover was a dye-cut affair which revealed a Gilliam art-print. The latter was passed over for some vinyl re-releases and the CD design. The latter did at least include the text of the original insert featuring the
'Open Field Farming' transcript (absent from earlier vinyl editions) which, like the
'All Quiet On The Western Front' script which accompanied
Another... was specifically designed to enhance the amusement
11. Monty Python Live At The Theatre Royal Drury Lane (Charisma, 1974) is a recording of the final night's performance of the team's four-week stint in February and March at that venue under the banner Monty Python's First Farewell Tour.
After several weeks of playing bit-parts in sketches the strain began to take its toll on Neil Innes, who took it upon himself to ad-lib a new section onto 'Election Night Special'. Called upon night after night to appear onstage as 'Kevin Phillips Bong' in flippers, deliver one line then disappear again, Innes decided instead, for one show only, to lead the cast and audience through a long rendition of 'Climb Every Mountain'. Amusingly this little deviation from the script cost the Pythons plenty as, when the recording was released, they had to pay the publishers for use of the song.
[NOTE (1): All the songs used in the Election Night Special sketch ('We'll Keep A Welcome', 'Don't Sleep In The Subway', and 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head') had to be credited on the album sleeve, even though their quoteage was fleeting and largely tuneless. The current CD issue has a tracklisting clearly compiled by someone ignorant of the album's contents: the songs are listed, alongside other incidental music ('Granada', 'Prestige Theme'), as if they are substantial sketch items in their own right. The same ignorant tracklister has also listed a sketch called 'Argument Song'.
[NOTE (2): The video release of the original Flying Circus Election Night Special sketch (Series 2, Show 6) does not feature any song credits on its sleeve.]
12. As a taster for the
Drury Lane LP, the unedited rushes of the
'Election Night Special' sketch were released to New Musical Express and pressed as a double-sided flexidisc to be given away free with the magazine. The disc, called
Monty Python's Tiny Black Round Thing also featured specially-recorded studio links by Michael Palin:
The doorbell signals the first extract from 'Election Night Special'. We won't quote the whole thingl but here are the bits which were cut from the Drury Lane LP edit:
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LINKMAN (CLEESE)
And we've just heard that James Gilbert has with him the winning Silly candidate at Luton.
GILBERT (IDLE)
Tarquin, are you, ah, pleased with this result?
TARQUIN (JONES)
Ho, yuss, me old beauty, I should say so. (MAKES SILLY CREAKING NOISES) Meeehhh...
GILBERT
How do you see this result?
TARQUIN
(HIGH PITCHED VOICE) F'tannng!! I see this as an overwhelming mandate (LOW BOOMING VOICE) To The Silly Party! (BELLOWS)
LINKMAN
And do we have the swing at Luton?
GERALD (CHAPMAN)
No? Er... no.
LINKMAN
(PAUSE) Right, well, umm... Umm... Norman?
NORMAN (PALIN)
Well I've got the Swong here in this box - glad you asked about it(!) - and it's looking fine. I can see through the breathing holes that it's eating its peanuts up at the rate of knots
GERALD
So it is!
LINKMAN
And how about the cheese sandwich?
GERALD
Well I think it needs a... another walnut pickle.
NORMAN
(EXCITED) Can I just break in here, sorry to say that the Swong has just had a quick one off the wrist! It's lying there, with an old Etonian friend, and it fair turns your stomach!
LINKMAN
Well I can't add anything to that. Colin?
COLIN (IDLE)
Can I just say that this is the second time I've been on television?
Monty Python's Tiny Black Round Thing, 1974
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Another section cut was Cleese repeating the full name of the 'Very Silly candidate':
We continue with another studio link from Palin:
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VOICEOVER
This record comes to you entirely free with New Musical Express, the hairspray that really cares for your hair, mends split ends, cures Athlete's Foot, and leaves your hair looking fresh, vital and with a thin white scum on top...
PAUSE, CONTINUES UNDER HIS BREATH, OUT OF CHARACTER
Mmm? I'm sorry? Right. Terribly sorry. I beg your pardon.
BACK TO VOICEOVER MODE
This record comes to you entirely free with New Musical Express, the pop paper that keeps you up to date with the latest grocery bargains. Toilet rolls are down to three pounds (or four pounds new), Doggo Hair Conditioner, down to fifty-four pee, leaves your spaniel looking cleaner, fresher and with a thin white scum on top...
OUT OF CHARACTER AGAIN
Hmm? Sorry? I'm sorry I normally do kind of mainly consumer-orientated kind of...
BACK TO VOICEOVER MODE
This record comes to you entirely free with New Musical Express, the paper which you can really wrap things up in - old spaniels; regurgitated curry - New Musical Express, the strongest and most absorbant pop paper in Britain today!
Monty Python's Tiny Black Round Thing, 1974
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This ends Side 1. Side 2 starts with yet another voiceover from Palin.
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VOICEOVER
What the press have said about Monty Python's Tiny Black Round Thing:
'An absolute smasher!' - New Musical Express
'A stunning record, full of originality, wit and perceptive brilliance' - New Musical Express
'Rubbish!' - The Dehli Sun
'Makes lettuce look interesting' - The Rangoon Morning Examiner
'Medically unsuitable' - The Calcutta Ladies Weekly
'Made me really squeak' - The Hamster And Furry Rodent Weekly
'Definitely not a gimmick!' - New Musical Express
Yes, this is the record you must hear, recorded live in the presence of Her Royal Highness the Dummy Princess Margaret on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, just next door to Alf's Cafe in Russell Street where you can enjoy a cup of tea and a roll for 20p. There are clean toilets which cater for your every need, and Alf himself will be pleased to brush your hair or simply adjust your dress. Yes, if you're taken short in the West End, then why not visit Alf's, where hospitality and hygiene go hand in hand!
FX: DING DONG
Monty Python's Tiny Black Round Thing, 1974
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And the bell cuts us back to the action - at the exactly point we left it. More slightly looser bits here:
The above is probably a reference to to the swingometer prop, and thus cut from the LP for visual reasons.
There's also a bit of a gap between the end of the sketch and Idle's "I never wanted to do this for a living", during which Palin makes a few nice low "hum hummm" vocal noises, for whatever reason. There are also other instance of pauses being tightened up slightly, but exactly how many there are we're not going to tell you.
13. In the middle of the Drury Lane version of 'Nudge
Nudge', Idle exclaims "Breakaway, ugh!" (followed by cheers and applause from the audience). This was a reference to the adverts Idle had starred in for a chocolate biscuit (which he had performed in his 'Nudge Nudge' character). Find them - stick them on the DVD. The line was deemed too esoteric for later audiences, however, and was snipped from both Instant Record Collection and The Final Rip Off.
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