The Rutles

The Rutles

“Get Up And Go Uber Edition”

(2021)

The Rutles were the greatest band of all time, or at least, they could have been. Formed in England around the mid-Seventies by Neil Innes (Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band) and Eric Idle (Monty Python), the band grew out of an idea for a sketch featured in a BBC comedy show called "Rutland Weekend Television", and embodied the most delightful and abrasive parody of the Beatles phenomenon ever seen since the days of the Monkees.

The Rutles took the concept much further, putting together an actual musical repertoire built around rearrangements and mash-ups of the Fab Four's most famous hits ("Help!" becomes "Ouch!", "I Am The Walrus" becomes "Piggy In The Middle", and so on), all seasoned with ironic, irreverent lyrics. Their self-titled album, "The Rutles" (Rhino, 1977), is an unmissable gem, and has also been reissued on CD.

The band had close ties to the Beatles' world, since Neil Innes and his Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band appeared in the filming of "Magical Mystery Tour" (1967), and Paul McCartney produced their hit "I'm The Urban Spaceman" (1968). George Harrison made an appearance on the Boxing Day 1975 episode of "Rutland Weekend Television", and his involvement with Monty Python is well known to all. It's said, however, that the other Beatles' reactions to the Rutles project were rather cold and lacking in self-irony.

The Rutles won over audiences immediately, and thanks to Idle's appearance on the October 2, 1976 episode of Saturday Night Live, during which he showed clips from Rutland Weekend Television, they got the chance to shoot the mock documentary "All You Need Is Cash" (1978) together with Gary Weiss, one of SNL's writers and directors.

The Rutles' aesthetic, forever balanced between the farcical and the grotesque, has survived safe and sound to this day. The band no longer exists today, since Innes passed away in 2019, but thousands of fans keep their name alive by posting hilarious tributes to their favourite band on social media every day. Anyone who happens to visit the "The Rutles Fan Club" Facebook page will be delighted to lose themselves in hundreds of hilarious parodic tributes to the band. On that page, fans have managed to turn reality on its head and make the Rutles more real than the Beatles, to the point of considering the former the true originators of it all, and the latter their reckless plagiarists (!!!).

Riding the wave of the recent release of George Harrison's extremely expensive "All Things Mast Pass Uber Edition" (2021), whose casing is said to have been carved from the wood of an oak tree on the grounds of Friar Park, and of the upcoming Super Deluxe edition of the box set celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles' "Let It Be" (album and film) — you'll read about it on OndaRock after October 15, 2021 — the Rutles (or their fans) have circulated the image of their own "Get Up And Go – Uber Edition". This too is a fake, naturally and unfortunately. The image shows a wooden coffin used as the box set's casing, containing a wealth of pointless gadgets such as a mug, t-shirt, frisbee, book, and several useless editions of the record in all its variants: vinyl, CD, cassette and Stereo 8.

Whether it was put out by the band themselves or simply by their fans, this parody is as brilliant as it is effective, since it shines a light on just how pointless certain editions are, and on how record labels are keen to squeeze their fans (ahem... "lemons") for every last drop, and on how, lately, social media have played a part in transfiguring fans' devotion to their idols. Both are deliciously juicy topics, deserving more than a passing thought. One could also spend hours and hours debating the wisdom of certain operations, which have preserved precious little of anything artistic. But if you're reading these words, it means you too belong to the category of die-hard fans, and so you're bound to run into dozens upon dozens of editions, more or less lavish, essential or utterly avoidable, of your favourite records. This column was born with the hope of helping readers find their way through the inscrutable maze of reissues, boxes, box sets, Super Deluxe Editions and whatever else you can think of.

Don't box me in

I told you not to

Don't box me in

Don't box me in

Don't box me in

Let go!

(September 9, 2021)

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26/04/2026