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The Lumberjack Song

"Lumberjack Song"
LUMBERJACK SONG 7".jpg
Single by Monty Python
Released 14 November 1975
Recorded 3 October 1975 at the Work House, London
Genre
Label Charisma
Writer(s) Michael Palin
Terry Jones
Fred Tomlinson
Producer(s) George Harrison
Monty Python singles chronology
"Monty Python's Tiny Black Round Thing"
(1974)
"Lumberjack Song"
(1975)
"Python On Song"
(1976)

"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.

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". The A-side, produced by Python devotee George Harrison, was recorded at the Work House studio in London on 3 October 1975 and mixed at Harrison's Friar Park home the following day. A year later this single was reissued on 19 November 1976 as the first half of the double single release Python On Song. This version of the song has never been released on CD, although a remix containing alternate vocal takes from the session was included on the compilation album Monty Python Sings.

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 [the 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).


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