Why is it that so many of Britain's top goalies feel moved to write about the Yangtse?

A section of a 1915 map of Yangtze Valley. From Wikimedia Commons.

When I set out to create this blog, my plan was to write about the Monty Python record album catalogue -- which in my opinion has not received enough attention in other, more official biographies and documentaries -- and to comment on each album, in order, from the album cover graphics to the sketches within the grooves to the differences between the audio versions and the televisual versions... and so on.

I got as far as part of side one of the first album.

I feel like the Harry Baggitt character from the Summarize Proust Competition sketch on The Monty Python Instant Record Collection LP: "... as you can see on the Proust-Ometer, he only got as far as Swann's Way, the first of the ten volumes..."

A good try, though, and very nice posture...

But, like Harry Baggitt, my doctor has encouraged me to stick with this (as well as my other hobbies, which, among others, includes golf.)

Instead of following the albums in order, I have decided to jump around as the mood hits me. This will mix things up for me (and my at least two readers) and keep it interesting. Then, when I've written everything there is possibly to write (six, seven, eight years from now, at this rate) I'll gather them all together and put them in chronological order.

Like today I heard a football fight song and it reminded me of the Yangtse Kiang sketch from Monty Python's Previous Record. So I'd like to comment on that, forthwith and all.

Monty Python's Previous Record released in 1972. "Not this record! Not this record!"

We Love The Yangtse.

The Yangtse Kiang sketch appears on Side Two of Monty Python's Previous Record, the third album in the Python oeuvre. It is an original sketch, not culled from the television episodes. It begins with a beautiful, swirling orchestra (according to the liner notes of the CD edition of this album, the music is called "Beachy Head" composed by one R. Cornford and published by Studio G Music, although a search of their online music library turned up nothing. We are about forty years on from the recording of this album, so... for what it's worth. A good try though, and very nice posture.) Over the music is heard the voice of Terry Jones, as if introducing a travelogue programme:

I must admit, as a twelve year old -- or however old I was when I first bought this album -- I didn't get the Yangtse Kiang sketch. I didn't quite follow the logic, or illogic of it all: UK football stars praising a river in China? Oh, now I get it.

There's nothing to get, of course. It's silly. It's Python. One of Python's styles is to combine styles: in this case, a geography documentary is combined with a sport documentary, with quotes from the players (football goalies) as well as sport commentators.

So it begins like a National Geographic special, with the aforementioned music and the "serious" voiceover narrator. Serious to the point where it switches to a sport documentary:

JONES:

Yangtse Kiang. The Great Yellow River. Which, from time immemorial, has fascinated and tantalized the hearts and minds of men from all corners of the earth... 
(i.e.) Bob Wilson, Arsenal:

And there's the switch. Suddenly the show becomes a "summing up from the team" interview. Except, these goalies, so moved by the beauty of the subject matter, have all, apparently at one time or another, written poetry about the Yangtse:

"A wondrous river;

Her broad banks a-swelling;

Home to a race

Of fish."

~ Bob Wilson: Arsenal

voiced by Graham Chapman

* * *

"Oh Yangtse!

Oh Yangtse!

Beautiful river!

River full

Of fish!"

~ Peter Shilton: Leicester

voiced by Eric Idle

* * *

"Yangtse Kiang

River of the Eastern dream;

Teeming with carp, and perch,

And trout, and

Bream."

~ Sprake: Leeds United

voiced by John Cleese

The sketch is now a Python-Hybrid: what am I listening to? A documentary on the Yangtse River? Or a Sports Program about Football? Why, it's both! 

Our announcer, Terry Jones, introduces some experts to the panel: First, former footballer and then-manager of Leeds United, Brian Clough...

JONES:
"Why is it that so many of Britains' top goalies feel moved to write about the Yangtse? Brian Clough?"

Brian Clough: voiced by Eric Idle

"Well, you must remember, David, er, that these, er, goalies -- especially Wilson, and on occasion Gorden West of Everton -- are romantics, er, they're dreamers, er, the Yangtse's a symbol for them, er, for them it evokes, er, David, a temple as well as a, er, spiritual continuity."

Gorden West of Everton: A dreamer; a romantic... on occasion.

Next up: Former Scottish footballer and later manager for Liverpool, Bill Shankley offers his views on Britain's goalies-turned-river-poets...

Bill Shankley: voiced by Michael Palin

"Oi, it's a... a river of many moods! To a young goalie like Peter Shilton of Leicester, the Yangtse is a beautiful river; but to a more seasoned goalie, like Phil Parkes of Wolves, it's a river of regret, of disillusioned ambition... and I think this is good."

Phil Parkes of Wolves: to whom the Yangtse perhaps symbolizes regret and disillusioned ambition.

MORE TO COME...