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.

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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.

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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:

Rutles -- "Number One" (1978)

When I fell for you

I didn't need a shove

Now that we are two

It all adds up to love!

Number one, number one

You're my number one

I was planning to write about Three Dog Night's huge 1969 hit, "One," to kick off this year's "29 Songs in 29 Days" series.  

But then I remembered that I had already written about that song back in July 2010.  Of course, I could probably post about a song I covered last week without anyone noticing -- but that's not the way 2 or 3 lines rolls.

So then I decided to post about Harry Nilsson's version of "One" -- Nilsson wrote the Three Dog Night hit and his recording of it is very interesting.  But I had included the Nilsson "One" in the Three Dog Night post, so nix to that.

Metallica did a song titled "One" on its 1988 album, And Justice For All, so that was a possibility.  But that song is about a soldier who lost his arms, legs, eyes, mouth, nose and ears in an explosion, but whose mind functions perfectly.

I watched the Metallica video for the song (which contains footage from the 1971 movie, Johnny Got His Gun, which is based on the 1939 Dalton Trumbo novel that inspired the Metallica song) -- I may have nightmares for the rest of my life.

Click here to view that video -- trust me, you won't thank me if you do.

That left me with "Number One," by the Rutles.  The Rutles were a fictitious British Invasion-style rock group created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes of Monty Python for a TV comedy sketch.

The Rutles came to my attention in 1978 when NBC aired the Rutles' mock documentary, All You Need Is Cash, in the SNL time slot one Saturday night.

While there was a lot of disagreement over which heavy-metal band inspired the This Is Spinal Tap "mockumentary" (which was released several years after All You Need Is Cash) there was never any doubt that the Rutles were intended to parody the Beatles.

"The Rutles" LP

Many of the Rutles' songs -- a 14-song LP was released at the same time the mockumentary aired -- were stunningly Beatles-ish.  Some of them were arguably better than the Beatles songs they most resembled. 

Like most Rutles songs, "Number One" is not based solely on one Beatles song.  I suppose the Fab Four song it most resembles is "Twist and Shout," but it includes bits and pieces of other early Beatles songs.

Here's an excerpt from All You Need Is Cash that features "Number One":

That's all for now, boys and girls, but don't forget to check back tomorrow for a groovy new post.  In case you weren't around last February, you should know that it's the tradition here at 2 or 3 lines to ramp it up and post every single day in February.  Santa brought me a 30-day supply of amphetamines, so I'm prepared to stay up for the whole damn month if that's what it takes to do "29 Songs in 29 Days" right.  (That's a fact, Jack!)

Here's "Number One" in its entirety:

Here's a link you can click on to order "Number One" from Amazon: