The comedy legends scrape the barrel of their archives, and become socially conscious in the process.
There are still unseen things in the Monty Python archives, apparently, and this week they’ve released an alternative version of the Terry Jones song I’m So Worried, which they’ve cunningly retitled I’m (Still) So Worried.
Like much of the stuff that appeared on 1980’s Contractual Obligation Album, the song is not exactly prime Python, and this alternative country take does rather reveal why it was rejected and stuck in the vaults for 40 years. But still, with a new animation collecting bits of Gilliam goodness and the odd update, it’s passably amusing for fans.
But remember when Python was just silliness and satire and subversion? Well, that’s done with apparently. The original version of the song was mocking the fretting of the middle classes while this version is being presented as a sincere look at modern concerns. Yes, really: the YouTube blurb has a po-faced bit of finger-wagging about environmental pollution – a serious issue, perhaps, but not one we expect Python to be lecturing us in. Have we really reached this point, where even Monty Python is Woke, even as the BBC are prefacing re-runs of Fawlty Towers with warnings about ‘incorrect’ attitudes? Perhaps we should be grateful that this trawl through the vaults didn’t unearth alternative recordings of Never Be Rude to an Arab or I Like Chinese from the same album…
