MPFC : The Content

Enough about the packaging, let us go inside the actual record sleeve, to the actual record itself, (actually).

The Camden Theatre in 2009,
home of the night club Koko.
Photo by Ewan Munro, c/o flickr.com

This first album was recorded on 2 May, 1970, on a Saturday afternoon in Camden Town, a commercial district in Greater London. The Pythons started to arrive at the Camden Theatre around 10:00am to prepare for the 4:30pm recording in front of a small audience of not-necessarily fans.

From Michael Palin's diary entry that day:

"Spent the morning in the rather attractive Camden Theatre -- a fairly small theatre, with Atlases supporting enormous mock columns and a rather luxurious intimacy about the atmosphere -- reading through the scripts, briefing the sound effects men. Somehow, one felt, this should have been done sooner."

Palin, for one, liked the fact that there was an audience there to play off of. Having started his show business career onstage at university -- as did most, if not all, of the Pythons -- working to a live audience encouraged immediate feedback as to how well or not a joke had gone over. I imagine this must have played out that afternoon in Camden Town much like an old time radio program, with the six actors on stage reading from scripts into microphones, not in costume and not worried about lighting and camera blocking and backgrounds; just concentrating on the material, as it were, with the help of the aforementioned sound effects men to audibly assist in creating the setting (a small, tinkling bell as a door opens, signifies someone entering a shop, for instance).

Certain other Pythons, however, had imagined the setting to be different: they didn't want a live audience. They wanted to perform in a secluded studio, where the sound was better controlled and they could do a second take if they muffed a line or something, and afterwards the sound effects could be meticulously added to create a nice, clean, audio version of their best sketches. In fact, that is how their subsequent albums were created. Terry Jones was one Python who disagreed with the performing for a live audience approach:

(Citation needed... I'll be right back. I have to find an old magazine I think have someplace wherein Terry Jones is quoted...) (I don't know who I'm talking to, nobody's reading this blog anyway...)

 SIDE ONE

The track listings on Monty Python records have never been anything more than a rough guide at best. There's so much silliness and little bits strewn throughout a Python recording that tracking everything would be nearly impossible, though I will try my best within this blog. I will start with the listing as given on the record label itself, and then editorialize as I discuss each track. Many of the subsequent Python albums, however, don't even have track listings. In fact, the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album says "Side 2" on both sides! And the third album, Monty Python's Previous Record has all the track listings for both sides on Side 1, due to the fact that Side 2's label is filled with a rambling diatribe by "A Harley Street Dentist" about how much nicer it is to write the list of contents for a comedy record than it is to poke around inside people's mouths all day. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We're still on the first album, Monty Python's Flying Circus. The track listing on this album is probably the most straightforward of any of their releases, and Side 1 goes something like this:

(1) Flying Sheep

(2) Television Interviews

(3) Trade Description Act

(4) Nudge Nudge

(5) The Mouse Problem

(6) Buying a Bed

(7) Interesting People

(8) The Barber

(9) Interviews

This is pretty much a correct and direct listing of the contents of Side 1, but, say you were looking for The Lumberjack Song. It's indeed on Side 1, but it's not listed separately, rather it is part of Track 8, The Barber. Nowadays The Lumberjack Song stands alone as a classic Python bit, but remember, when this record came out in 1970, The Lumberjack Song was nothing more than the ending to a sketch about a psychotic barber, with shades of Sweeney Todd.

I hope to clarify things like that as this blog goes on (and on and on and on...)

A more detailed track listing of Side 1 might look something like this:

(1) Flying Sheep
    (1a) Flying Sheep Sketch
    (1b) French Interpretation (Le Pouf Celebre)
    (1c) Pepperpots Vox Populi (on French Philosophers)
(2) Television Interviews
    (2a) Link Announcer (And now for something completely different...)
    (2b) Arthur Frampton : The Man With Three Buttocks
(3) Trade Description Act
    (3a) Crunchy Frog Sketch
    (3b) Superintendent Parrot Summing Up
(4) Nudge Nudge
(5) The Mouse Problem
    (5a) Mouse Problem Documentary
    (5b) Man-in-the-Street Vox Populi (on Mice Men)
(6) Buying a Bed
(7) Interesting People
(8) The Barber

    (8a) Barber Shop Sketch

    (8b) Lumberjack Song
    (8c) Letter of Protest / Art Critic Links

    (8d) Art Critic Sketch (The Place of The Nude in the History of Art)
(9) Interviews
    (9a) It's The Arts (Opening Announcement)
    (9b) Sir Edward ("Ed" "Ted" "Eddie Baby") Ross Interview
    (9c) End of Side 1

So you see, by the more detailed account, that the Lumberjack Song and the Art Critic Sketch are not even noted in the original track listing. Ohwhatagiveaway!