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The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. 1973

On side one, track five of The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief album, you'll find a cut called "Word Association," sometimes known as "Word Association Football."

Like many elementary school nerds in the seventies, my friend Dave W and I would sit in study hall and try to transcribe Python bits. (Lotsa people did this, right?) (Right?) Inevitably, he would hear different things than I would, and write them down, and I would write down the things I would hear, and then we'd share them with each other and go, "Oh! So that's what Balls Pond Road means!" and so forth.

It took us half a semester to dissected this piece...

"Word Association Football" is a confusing word-play (Dave W would say "it's not confusing to me!") monologue spoken by John Cleese. It's meant to be a simple speech about free association of words and phrases, but, as he's reciting it, Cleese begins to digress from his speech, free associating the very words and phrases he speaks (the famous explorer.) And to add to the confusion ("it's not confusing to me!" ~ D.W.) Cleese begins associating more words and phrases on top of the words and phrases he's already associating, and more on top of that etc etc etc...

Dave W and I narrowed it down and trimmed away the digressions and associations, and found the core of Cleese's intended speech, which is transcribed below in bold black type. We then decided -- in 9th grade speech class -- that he (Dave) would give the straightforward version of the speech in front of the class, and I would get up after him and give the same speech only this time with Cleese's digressions and associations intact, as illustrated below in coloured annotations.

That was our plan anyway.

Just to be safe, we asked our teacher Mr Schubert ahead of time if we could do this, and he responded -- without even looking up from whatever work he was doing -- and said, "If you wanna do sketches, join Mrs Carlson's drama class..." So we never got to do it.

(click to enlarge)

By the way, Dave W is now a successful lawyer and father of two, while I'm still transcribing Python skits on a stupid blog. He probably doesn't even remember any of this. Ask him if you see him. (On second thought, don't. He might just charge you for his time.)

Where many a selfish bastard has been kicked.