Saturday, February 22, 2020

Rutles – "Ouch!" (1978)


Ouch!
Don’t desert me!
Ouch!
Please don’t hurt me!

In 1978, NBC aired a brilliant “mockumentary” about the Rutles, a fictional British Invasion band whose music bore more than a passing resemblance to that of the Beatles.

All You Need Is Cash – which featured guest appearances by Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, George Harrison Mick Jagger, Bianca Jagger, Bill Murray, and Paul Simon (among others) – had the lowest ratings of any primetime network show that aired that week, but quickly achieved legendary status.

*     *     *     *     *

The soundtrack of All You Need Is Cash contains fourteen songs that not only are dead-on parodies of well-known Beatles songs, but in many cases are actually better than the originals that they are based on.

Neil Innes
The All You Need Is Cash songs were written by Neil Innes, who died only a few weeks ago at age 75.  Innes often collaborated with the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe – he was sometimes called “The Seventh Python” – and was a member of the avant-garde Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (which appeared in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour movie).

Innes was friends with the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and other superstars of that era.  Their fame had made most of them miserable – Clapton once told Innes that “It’s too much for anyone to take all this idolatry” – and Innes decided he would stay out of the limelight as much as possible.

*     *     *     *     *

The songs in All You Need Is Cash cover the Beatles gamut – there are parodies of the Fab Four’s early boy-band hits, later songs like “Get Back,” and everything in-between.  


The one Rutles song that isn’t arguably better than the original is “Piggy in the Middle,” which was inspired by “I Am the Walrus.”  That’s not because “Piggy in the Middle” isn’t a great song – it mos’ definitely is – but “I Am the Walrus” may be the best Beatles song of all.  (It’s certainly in the top three.) 

Today we’re featuring “Ouch!” – a parody of “Help!” 

Click here to watch the music video for “Ouch!”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

No comments:

Post a Comment