Musical sketch from the film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
"
Every Sperm Is Sacred
" is a musical sketch from the film
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
. A satire of Catholic teachings on reproduction that forbid masturbation and contraception, the song was released on the album
Monty Python Sings
and was nominated for a
BAFTA
Music Award for Best Original Song in a Film in 1983.
[1]
[2]
Andre Jacquemin and David Howman wrote the music and
Michael Palin
and
Terry Jones
wrote the lyrics and performed the song,
[3]
which is hailed as one of the Pythons' great sketches.
[4]
Viewing Python as the "great originator" of combining provocative humour and high-quality original music,
Family Guy
creator
Seth MacFarlane
regarded the song as his favourite Python number, stating: "It's so beautifully written, it's musically and lyrically legit, the orchestrations are fantastic, the choreography and the presentation are very, very complex ? it's treated seriously."
[5]
Content and production
[
edit
]
The song is a
satire
of
Catholic teachings on reproduction
that forbid
masturbation
and
contraception
by artificial means. The sketch, called "The
Third World
", is about a Catholic
Yorkshire
worker played by
Michael Palin
, with his wife played by director
Terry Jones
. They have sixty-three children, who are about to be sold for scientific experimentation purposes because their parents can no longer afford to care for such a large family with the local mill being closed. When their children ask why they should not use any form of birth control, or why the father cannot perform self-castration, their father explains that this is against God's wishes, and breaks into song, the chorus of which is:
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.
The production in
The Meaning of Life
was filmed in
Colne, Lancashire
, and
Burnley, Lancashire
, and choreographed by
Arlene Phillips
to a storyboard by Jones.
[6]
The hearty and cheerful nature of the musical number is counterpointed as the children are marched off to their fate as the song ends, singing a dour rendition of the chorus as their middle-aged
Protestant
neighbours (played by
Graham Chapman
and
Eric Idle
) comment on the teachings of the
Catholic Church
. They add that they have two children, which is the exact number of times they have had sex in their marriage. The grounds of
Cartwright Hall
art gallery in
Bradford
, West Yorkshire, was used as a location for the singing and dancing nurses.
[7]
The song is a
style pastiche
of the song "
Consider Yourself
", from the musical
Oliver!
by
Lionel Bart
. Later, Jones denied that it was explicitly written to make fun of the genre of
musical comedy
:
"
'Every Sperm is Sacred' is not a parody of these things, it just
is
those things, it's a musical song, it's a hymn, it's a Lionel Bart-style musical, but it's not making fun of a Lionel Bart-style musical."
[1]
The song was performed at
Monty Python Live (Mostly)
, with Idle singing Palin's part. It was also followed by the discussion from Protestant married couple with Palin and Jones playing the Protestant husband and wife respectively.
Influence
[
edit
]
Sexuality and reproduction
[
edit
]
The phrase "every sperm is sacred" has become almost proverbial in the field of
animal
[8]
and
human sexuality
and
reproduction
.
[9]
This extends to such areas as
cloning
, where the song is used to criticize anti-cloning activists who argue that every embryo or fertilized egg is sacred.
[10]
Abortion-rights
activists have sung the song outside
abortion clinics
to ridicule their opponents,
[11]
legal scholars have alluded to it in discussions of women's reproductive rights,
[12]
and
Emily Martin
describes its usage as a
reductio ad absurdum
of anti-abortion positions.
[13]
Religion
[
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]
The religious import of the sketch is significant, and is reflected in the widely dispersed usage of the phrase. In the book
Monty Python and Philosophy
, the argument is teased out to reach a broader (still humorous) conclusion: "The Pythons ask us to consider the consequences of the belief that God cares about our reproductive practices and sees everything. If so, then he watches our sexual activities. ...Christians must concede that all things considered, this [watching people have sex] is one of God's less onerous activities."
[14]
Philip Jenkins
discusses the sketch as an important sign of a growing willingness in the popular media of the 1970s and 1980s to criticize the Catholic Church, saying that "Catholic attitudes toward sex and contraception are ruthlessly parodied" in the song, proving that "Catholicism was available as a legitimate subject of serious fiction."
[15]
Richard Dawkins
, in his
The God Delusion
, cites the song for that reason, the illustration of the "surreal idiocy" of some pro-religion,
anti-abortion
arguments.
[16]
Masturbation
[
edit
]
It is sometimes difficult to separate the comic from the serious application of the phrase, and two recent publications on the
penis
use it for precisely that purpose,
Talking Cock
, by
Richard Herring
,
[17]
and
Dick: A User's Guide
.
[18]
In both cases, the sketch is used to ridicule those who condemn
masturbation
, and
sex
for any purpose other than
procreation
.
Reverse censorship
[
edit
]
According to the interview with Palin on the DVD extras, he said
"
at the end of my
sock
"
in the original scene, with the word "
cock
" being overdubbed later. This was done because the scene featured numerous
underage
children and the Pythons were already concerned they were "pushing the limit". Years later, several of the child actors stated they had no idea what they were singing about.
[19]
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Chapman, Graham; John Cleese; Michael Palin; Terry Gilliam; Eric Idle; Terry Jones; Bob McCabe (2003).
The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons
. Macmillan. p. 323.
ISBN
978-0-312-31144-5
.
- ^
"BAFTA Awards: Original Song Written for a Film in 1984"
.
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
. Retrieved
2 August
2015
.
- ^
Gustafson, Alice.
"Andre Jacquemin: Monty Python's Maestro on Every Sperm Is Sacred and Brian Song"
.
headlinermagazine.net
. Retrieved
10 March
2024
.
- ^
Gale, Steven H. (1996).
Encyclopedia of British Humorists: Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese
. Taylor & Francis. p. 155.
ISBN
978-0-8240-5990-3
.
- ^
"8 TV Shows and Comedy Stars Inspired by Monty Python"
. BBC America
. Retrieved
30 September
2019
.
- ^
Douglas, McCall (2013).
Monty Python: A Chronology, 1969-2012, 2d ed
. McFarland. p. 958.
- ^
"Monty Python comes to town"
.
Telegraph and Argus
. 26 June 2009
. Retrieved
19 August
2019
.
- ^
Singson, A. (2001).
"Every Sperm Is Sacred: Fertilization in
Caenorhabditis elegans
"
.
Developmental Biology
.
230
(2).
Elsevier
: 101?109.
doi
:
10.1006/dbio.2000.0118
.
ISSN
0012-1606
.
PMID
11161565
.
- ^
Braun, R.E. (1998). "Every Sperm Is Sacred--Or Is It?".
Nature Genetics
.
18
(3): 202?204.
doi
:
10.1038/ng0398-202
.
hdl
:
1773/4324
.
ISSN
1061-4036
.
PMID
9500533
.
S2CID
44857156
.
- ^
Charo, R. Alta
(2001). "Every Cell Is Sacred: Logical Consequences of the Argument from Potential in the Age of Cloning". In Lauritzen, Paul (ed.).
Cloning and the Future of Human Embryo Research
. Oxford University Press US. pp. 82?92.
ISBN
978-0-19-512858-1
.
P. 82.
- ^
Peters, Cynthia (1990). "Every Sperm Is Sacred". In Fried, Marlene Gerber (ed.).
From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom: Transforming a Movement
. South End Press. p.
187
.
ISBN
978-0-89608-387-5
.
- ^
Millbank, Jenni (1997). "Every Sperm Is Sacred? Denying Women Access to Fertility Services on the Basis of Sexuality or Marital Status".
Alternative Law Journal
.
22
: 129?29.
- ^
Martin, Emily
(1992). "Body Narratives, Body Boundaries". In Grossberg, Lawrence; Cary Nelson; Paula A. Treichler (eds.).
Cultural Studies
. Routledge. p. 422.
ISBN
978-0-415-90345-5
.
- ^
Hardcastle, Gary L.; George A. Reisch (2006).
Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!
. Open Court Publishing. p. 129.
ISBN
978-0-8126-9593-9
.
- ^
Jenkins, Philip (2003).
The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
. Oxford University Press US. p.
161
.
ISBN
978-0-19-515480-1
.
- ^
Dawkins, Richard (2006).
The God Delusion
. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 300.
ISBN
978-0-618-68000-9
.
- ^
Herring, Richard (2004).
Talking Cock: A Celebration of Man and His Manhood
. Thunder's Mouth Press. p. 109.
ISBN
978-1-56025-608-3
.
- ^
Moore, Michele; Caroline De Costa (2003).
Dick: A User's Guide
. Marlowe & Company. p. 43.
ISBN
978-1-56924-429-6
.
- ^
Monty Python
(2 September 2003).
Monty Python's the Meaning of Life (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (1983)
.
Amazon.com
(
DVD
).
Universal Studios
.
ASIN
B0000A0MFJ
.
External links
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