The Rutles

The Rutles (aka The pre-fab four) was a parody of the Beatles, jointly created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes. The fictional group is best known for the 1978 mockumentary film about them titled All You Need Is Cash (often referred to just as The Rutles . Tagline: The Musical Legend which will last a lunchtime.). The film was written by Idle and featured songs written by Innes.

Rutles albums (real)

A soundtrack album entitled The Rutles containing 14 tongue-in-cheek pastiches of Beatles' songs was also released.

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The cover art of the album suggested the existence of a number of other Rutles albums including Tragical History Tour and Let it Rot.

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The album contains some obvious send-ups of Beatles numbers such as "Ouch!" ("Help!"), "Doubleback Alley" ("Penny Lane") and "Get Up and Go" ("Get Back"). However, its real tribute is in its subtly layered blending of elements from many classic Lennon-McCartney tunes.

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Multiple listenings are required to discern all the sources referenced in titles, lyrics, melodies, and song structures. The primary creative force of the Rutles music was Neil Innes - the sole composer and arranger of the songs.

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Innes himself credits the three musicians he recruited to assist him on the project as having been enormously important in helping him capture the feel of the Beatles. These were guitarist/singer Ollie Halsall, drummer John Halsey and multi-instrumentalist Rikki Fataar.

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Not commonly known is that Eric Idle is not heard at all on the soundtrack of the film. He did not play or sing on any of the recordings. He is skilful at lip-syncing the "Dirk" vocals that were in fact sung by either Neil Innes or Ollie Halsall. Were it not for the inherently ironic lyrics, it might be difficult to distinguish the songs from true Beatles numbers (indeed, the 1978 Beatles bootleg Indian Rope Trick included the Rutles' Cheese and Onions, incorrectly attributing it to John Lennon).

Related Topics:
Ironic - Indian Rope Trick - John Lennon

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The original LP album omitted several songs which were restored on the 1990 CD reissue.

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The Rutles (1978)

• Goose-Step Mama (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:18 (not on LP)
• Number One (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:52
• Baby Let Me Be (Nasty/McQuickly) - 1:57 (not on LP)
• Hold My Hand (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:11 (shorter than on LP)
• Blue Suede Schubert (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:13 (not on LP)
• I Must Be in Love (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:06
• With a Girl Like You (Nasty/McQuickly) - 1:53
• Between Us (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:03 (not on LP)
• Living in Hope (Womble) - 2:39
• Ouch! (Nasty/McQuickly) - 1:52
• It's Looking Good (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:02 (not on LP)
• Doubleback Alley (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:57
• Good Times Roll (Nasty/McQuickly) - 3:05
• Nevertheless (O'Hara) - 1:29
• Love Life (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:52
• Piggy in the Middle (Nasty/McQuickly) - 4:11
• Another Day (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:13
• Cheese and Onions (Nasty/McQuickly) - 2:42
• Get Up and Go (Nasty/McQuickly) - 3:19 (not on LP)
• Let's Be Natural (Nasty/McQuickly) - 3:22

Three of the four musicians who had created the soundtrack for the 1978 film reunited in 1996 and recorded a second album, Archaeology, an affectionate send-up of the Beatles' six-disc Anthology.

Related Topics:
1996 - Anthology

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The three musicians were Innes, Halsey and Fataar The fourth 'real' Rutle Ollie Halsall had died in Spain in 1991. As the project was solely a music project - Idle was not involved.

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Like the Anthology project that it lampooned, it featured tracks ostensibly from all periods of the Rutles career - sequenced to reflect the fictional band's chronology. (One or two of the songs had started out as Neil Innes solo songs but were adapted by Innes to become Rutles tracks.) The reunion was given the blessing of George Harrison who encouraged Neil Innes to proceed. (When approached, he told Innes, "Sure. It's all part of the 'soup'..." - an encounter that Innes related in interviews in 1996.)

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The reunion was triggered by Innes' appearance at "Monty Python: Lust For Glory!" a festival in Los Angeles celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Monty Python troupe produced by Martin Lewis for the American Cinematheque. Innes performed two sold-out gigs at L.A.'s Troubadour club under the name "Ron Nasty & The New Rutles" using a local Beatles tribute band as the notional backing band that a sole member of a defunct vintage band hires in such circumstance. e.g. "Eric Burdon & The New Animals" - a band name used by Burdon in 1968 to take advantage of the public's familiarity with the "Animals" brand name - even though there were no other members of the original Animals in the line-up.

Related Topics:
Martin Lewis - American Cinematheque

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Following the success of the shows Lewis and Innes collaborated on the project that became "Archaeology."

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The Rutles Archaeology (1996)

• Major Happy's Up-And-Coming Once Upon A Good Time Band
• Rendezvous
• Questionnaire
• We've Arrived! (And to Prove It We're Here)
• Lonely-Phobia
• Unfinished Words
• Hey Mister!
• Easy Listening
• Now She's Left You
• The Knicker Elastic King
• I Love You
• Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik
• Joe Public
• Shangri-La
• Don't Know Why
• Back in '64

All songs were credited solely to Neil Innes.

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The Japanese release of Archaeology includes 4 bonus tracks: "Lullaby", "Baby S'il Vous Plait", "It's Looking Good" (rehearsal), and "My Little Ukulele".

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"Baby S'il Vous Plait" was a crude French-language version of an earlier Rutles song "Baby Let Me Be" from the 1977 soundtrack. The song was recorded as a pastiche of the Beatles' two German-language recordings of "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" - with suitably poor translation and even poorer foreign accents.

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Bootlegs

Bootlegs include "Hard Days Rut", "Rehearsal", "Sweet Rutle Tracks", "Rutles To Let", "Sgt Rutters Only Darts Club Band", and "Rutland's Rare Rutles Revisited." More information on these can be found at bootlegzone.com.

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