Performer: Spinal Tap
Songwriters: Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean,
Rob Reiner
Original Release: This Is Spinal Tap
Year: 1984
Definitive Version: Of course, it has to be the version from the
triumphant reunion of the band at the end of their otherwise disastrous Smell
the Glove Tour of 1982, as documented in the documentary, This Is Spinal Tap.
It was a bittersweet moment to be sure, considering that it occasioned the
demise of drummer Mick Shrimpton, but he had to go so Joe Mama Besser could
come. So is the circle of life.
I apologize for the
misspelling, but unfortunately, Word won’t let me put an umlaut over the n in
Spinal Tap (or remove the dot over the I), as is correct.
Just as New Year’s Eve 1993
was memorable because of something that was on TV that night, so was New Year’s
Eve 1992. That night occasioned the memorable reunion of Spinal Tap.
OK, so the band had publicly
reunited earlier that year at the Freddie Mercury concert, but this was a
full-blown hourlong special updating the history and extending the joke with a
performance at The Royal Albert Hall. I haven’t seen the whole video, but I
would suspect that MTV cut it up and inserted Martha Quinn—an original VJ—for
nutty commentary to take them in and out of commercials.
Before concerts, I always
try to guess the opening song. I’ve done this almost as long as I’ve gone to
concerts, and I was curious as to which song Spinal Tap would use to kick off
their show. As if there were any doubt: It HAD to be this one.
I don’t want to talk too
much about the video, because you can see it if you haven’t. But two things
struck me about it: One, I liked that they had the same guy on drums as was in
the movie—R.J. Parnell. Sure this time he was Ric Shrimpton, because Mick Shrimpton
famously died in the movie, but it was the same guy. I thought that was pretty
cool.
Two, for all the comedy of
Spinal Tap, Guest, McKean and Shearer can play, and they can write a decent
song. The words are hilarious, of course, but the tunes are better than that of
a lot of serious bands. When it came time to do the list, I decided on that
basis to include this song, which is my favorite. Yes, if I were on a desert
island, and I only had one song with me, I’d rather it be this one—by a fake
group—than any of the previous 266.
One more quick Spinal Tap
story that I don’t think I would mention anywhere else. About 12 years after
the reunion special, I was in a conversation with a co-worker, when he
announced his five funniest movies of all-time.
Normally when someone does
this, you just nod and go, OK. But he almost did in fact name the five funniest
movies of all-time: Airplane! (Of course), Blazing Saddles (Absolutely),
Caddyshack (Check), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Correct) and Midnight Run
(Uh hu … wait, what?!).
That’s the movie with Robert
DeNiro and Charles Grodin? Yup. Never saw it, and I still to this day haven’t
seen it. My off-the-cuff response was that he got 4 out of 5 right and that the
fifth choice was Animal House. I suppose that was the answer I was expecting,
and I wouldn’t have argued with it.
But the more I thought about
it, the more I concluded that the fifth choice had to be This Is Spinal Tap.
I’ve seen that movie through the miracle of videotape probably 50 times, and it
never stops being funny. I think I still catch something new, some nuance I had
missed, with each viewing. That’s the mark of a true classic.
The Hangover? Hey, who let
the kids in here? The adults are trying to have a conversation!
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