Eric Idle Recorded ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ the Day After a Personal Tragedy
The hands down funniest crucifixion scene in all of movie history came at the end of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Just as the titular not-the-messiah has abandoned all hope, a fellow crucifixion victim, played by Eric Idle, suggests that he cheer up, and proceeds to belt out the now-iconic tune “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
In the years since the movie came out, the ironically-peppy number has become a sort of anthem for Idle, who even performed it during the closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics.
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But the song that’s made so many people so happy (and a whole lot of Christian fundamentalists very unhappy) was recorded just one day after Idle experienced a personal tragedy: the death of his good friend, legendary drummer Keith Moon. According to Idle, he hugged Moon the day he died, and had to record a Disney-esque ditty soon afterwards.
Moon, who Idle called “inspiringly generous,” was actually present for the inception of Life of Brian, having tagged along with the Pythons to Barbados where they first worked on the screenplay. Idle recalled how his friend would play Scrabble with John Cleese and Graham Chapman, adding the word “CAT” to “their very long words.”
Chapman had wanted Moon to star in his film The Odd Job, but the producers wouldn’t allow it. So the Pythons offered him a role in Brian, as a “mad prophet” (the part would ultimately be played by Terry Gilliam).
Per Idle’s memoir, also named Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, a week before the Brian shoot, he ran into Moon at a screening of The Buddy Holly Story that had been organized by Paul McCartney. After the two embraced, Moon immediately spouted off his lines from Life of Brian, to which Idle replied: “Yes, yes, Keith, that’s great, save it for next week.” But Moon died that night, September 7, 1978, of an “accidental overdose of the prescription drug Heminevrin.”
The following day, September 8th, Idle recorded “Always Look on the Bright Side of Live” with a “small orchestra” and the Fred Tomlinson singers, who “stood in for the absent Pythons.” But after recording his vocal part, Idle still wasn’t happy with it. He later realized, while they were filming Brian in Tunisia, that it needed to be sung by his Cockney character, who he called “Mr. Cheeky.”
So Idle holed up in a Tunisian hotel room with a sound recordist and a bottle of booze, shoved mattresses against the walls, and laid down the final vocal take into a boom mic. “I really let it rip with the Cheeky character,” Idle recalled, “and the song suddenly came to life.”
Fittingly, this song that was entwined with a friend’s untimely passing eventually became one of the most popular songs to play at funerals.
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