|
"The Lumberjack Song" is a song by the Monty Python comedy troupe. The song was written and composed by Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Fred Tomlinson.〔''Monty Python Sings'' CD booklet. 1989 Virgin Records〕 It first appeared in the ninth episode of ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'', "The Ant: An Introduction" on BBC1 on 14 December 1969. The song has since been performed in several forms, including film, stage, and LP, each time started from a different skit. At an NPR interview in 2007, Michael Palin stated the scene and the whole song were created in about 15 minutes, concluding a day's work, when the Python crew was stuck and unable to come up with a conclusion to the barbershop sketch that preceded it. On 14 November 1975, "The Lumberjack Song" was released as a single in the UK, on Charisma Records, backed with "Spam Song".〔Harry Castleman & Walter J. Podrazik, ''All Together Now: The First Complete Beatles Discography 1961−1975'', Ballantine Books (New York, NY, 1976), p. 372.〕 The A-side was produced by Python devotee George Harrison.〔The Editors of ''Rolling Stone'', ''Harrison'', Rolling Stone Press/Simon & Schuster (New York, NY, 2002), p. 194.〕 == Synopsis == The common theme was of an average man (played by Michael Palin in the original television version, but in later live versions by Eric Idle) who expresses dissatisfaction with his current job (as a barber, weatherman, pet shop owner, etc.) and then announces, "I didn't want to be (given profession ). I wanted to be... a lumberjack!" He proceeds to talk about the life of a lumberjack ("Leaping from tree to tree"), and lists various trees (e.g. larch, fir, Scots pine, and others that don't actually exist). Ripping off his coat to reveal a red flannel shirt, he walks over to a stage with a coniferous forest backdrop, and he begins to sing about the wonders of being a lumberjack in British Columbia. Then, he is unexpectedly backed up by a small choir of male singers, all dressed as Canadian Mounties (several were regular Python performers, while the rest were generally members of an actual singing troupe, such as the Fred Tomlinson Singers in the TV version). In the original sketch from the programme and film version, the girl is played by Connie Booth, John Cleese's then-wife; in the live version, the girl is played by Python regular Carol Cleveland. In the version from the film ''And Now For Something Completely Different'', it follows on from the "Dead Parrot sketch" with Palin's character leaving the pet shop as Eric Praline asks "I'm sorry, this is irrelevant, isn't it?" and eventually "What about my bloody parrot?!". In the song, the Lumberjack recounts his daily tasks and his personal life, such as having buttered scones for tea, and the Mountie chorus repeats his lines in sing-song fashion. However, as the song continues, he increasingly reveals cross-dressing tendencies (''"I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flowers, I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars"''), which both distresses the girl and disturbs the confused Mounties, who continue to repeat and chorus his lines, albeit with increasing hesitance. The last straw comes when he mentions that he wears "''high heels, suspenders, and a bra''", and some of the Mounties stop repeating his lines, and they eventually walk off in disgust. Stunned by the Lumberjack's revelation, the girl cries out "Oh, Bevis! And I thought you were so rugged!" (in some versions, she says, "I thought you were so butch!" and sometimes slaps him) before running off. In ''And Now For Something Completely Different'', at the end of the song the Lumberjack is pelted with rotten fruit and eggs by the Mounties, who can also be heard shouting insults. Another notable difference is that, in the original version, the Lumberjack wishes he was a girlie "just like my dear mama", whereas subsequent versions replace "mama" with "papa", implying that the lumberjack inherited his tendency for transvestism from his father. At the end of the version in ''Flying Circus'', a letter written by an enraged viewer (voiced by John Cleese) is shown to complain about the portrayal of lumberjacks in the sketch. The letter reads: "Dear Sir, I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the song which you have just broadcast about the lumberjack who wears women's clothes. Many of my best friends are lumberjacks, and only a few of them are transvestites. Yours faithfully, Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strong (Mrs.) P.S. I have never kissed the editor of the ''Radio Times''." It then cuts to a vox pop of a screeching Pepperpot (Graham Chapman) complaining about the inappropriateness of "all this sex on the television", exclaiming, "I keep falling off!" 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Lumberjack Song」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|