Michael Palin and Terry Jones Threw Together a Famous Monty Python Song in Just 15 Minutes

Monty Python are obviously known for their hilarious sketches, classic movies and petty social media squabbles, but they’ve also produced a number of musical bangers over the years. There’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” “Every Sperm Is Sacred” and the timeless romantic ballad known as “Sit on My Face.”

One of the most famous Python tunes is, of course, “The Lumberjack Song,” in which a rugged woodsman sings about how he loves chopping down trees and wearing women’s undergarments, all backed by an increasingly befuddled chorus of Canadian Mounties for some reason. 

Whether or not the song holds up today is a matter of some debate. On the one hand, it regressively mines laughs from the idea of gender curiosity. On the other, it clearly was intended to lampoon antiquated depictions of the masculine ideal. Was any of this stuff considered back when the song was being written? Probably not, considering that the writing process was even shorter than an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

In a recent interview, Palin admitted that he only decided to try writing a song because musician and “seventh Python” Neil Innes suggested that he could. “It was only with Neil’s encouragement that I had the confidence to have a go at music,” Palin explained. “He was always saying, ‘Well, why don’t you have a go?’” 

The opportunity presented itself when Palin and Jones were stuck trying to finish a scene about a crazed hairdresser: “When Terry and I were struggling to find an ending for a sketch we wrote about this homicidal maniac barber, I said, ‘What about if he suddenly bursts into song? All about how he hates being a barber, and he really wants to be a lumberjack.’”

It’s easy to forget that in the original Flying Circus episode, the “Lumberjack Song” is just the coda to a sketch about a barber in a blood-covered smock who goes to great lengths to try not to murder his customer. 

In subsequent live performances, the barber stuff was scrapped, and “The Lumberjack Song” was able to be inserted into any sketch as long as it ended with a character saying that they didn’t actually want to working in that job. 

Which makes it all the more shocking that the whole lumberjack angle, including the iconic song, was just an afterthought, seemingly just thrown in so that Palin and Jones could finish writing for the day and grab a pint. “I’d never considered myself a lyric writer,” Palin noted, “but me and Terry put it together in about 15 minutes. Then, we went to the pub!”

To be fair, Jones has claimed in the past that “The Lumberjack Song” took “about half an hour.” Which, to be fair, is still pretty darn short.