An Introduction To The Songs Of The Third Tallest, And Most Musical Python

Eric Idle born 29th March 1943 is the third tallest member of Monty Python, and the only Python to have had a song in the charts Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Apart from being quite a funny man he is also a decent musician and has penned many of the tunes heard both on the popular 1970s television show and in the Python movies. So rather than his comedy I am going to concentrate on his vast back catalog of songs.

Amongst his many musical achievements are songs such as "The Spam Song," "The Lumberjack Song," "The Penis Song" and though not a song but equally as irreverent, "Rock Notes," (in which Idle tells of trying to come up with a band name "so silly, no one would ever use it or dream it could ever be used. Without knowing that "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the 1979 movie The Life of Brian is sung -- and whistled -- by a group of crucified men, or that "I Must Be In Love" is a parody of The Beatles from the 1978 movie The Rutles, is to miss out on some of the visual subtleties, cultural references and black humor these songs evoke. In recent years he wrote the book and lyrics and co-wrote the music for Spamalot which opened on Broadway in 2005.