Rob Sheffield Quote
24. The Rutles, Cheese and Onions (1978) A legend to last a lunchtime. The Rutles were the perfect Beatle parody, starring Monty Python’s Eric Idle and the Bonzos’ Neil Innes in their classic mock-doc All You Need Is Cash, with scene-stealing turns by George Harrison, Mick Jagger, and Paul Simon. (Interviewer: Did the Rutles influence you at all? Simon: No. Interviewer: Did they influence Art Garfunkel? Simon: Who?) Cheese and Onions is a psychedelic ersatz Lennon piano ballad so gorgeous, it eventually got bootlegged as a purported Beatle rarity. Innes captures that tone of benignly befuddled pomposity—I have always thought in the back of my mind / Cheese and onions—along with the boyish vulnerability that makes it moving. Hell, he even chews gum exactly like John. The Beatles’ psychedelic phase has always been ripe for parody. Witness the 1967 single The L.S. Bumble Bee, by the genius Brit comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, from Beyond the Fringe and the BBC series Not Only . . . But Also, starring John Lennon in a cameo as a men’s room attendant. The L.S. Bumble Bee sounds like the ultimate Pepper parody—Freak out, baby, the Bee is coming!—but it came out months before Pepper, as if the comedy team was reeling from Pet Sounds and wondering how the Beatles might respond. Cook and Moore are a secret presence in Pepper—when the audience laughs in the theme song, it’s taken from a live recording of Beyond the Fringe, produced by George Martin.
24. The Rutles, Cheese and Onions (1978) A legend to last a lunchtime. The Rutles were the perfect Beatle parody, starring Monty Python’s Eric Idle and the Bonzos’ Neil Innes in their classic mock-doc All You Need Is Cash, with scene-stealing turns by George Harrison, Mick Jagger, and Paul Simon. (Interviewer: Did the Rutles influence you at all? Simon: No. Interviewer: Did they influence Art Garfunkel? Simon: Who?) Cheese and Onions is a psychedelic ersatz Lennon piano ballad so gorgeous, it eventually got bootlegged as a purported Beatle rarity. Innes captures that tone of benignly befuddled pomposity—I have always thought in the back of my mind / Cheese and onions—along with the boyish vulnerability that makes it moving. Hell, he even chews gum exactly like John. The Beatles’ psychedelic phase has always been ripe for parody. Witness the 1967 single The L.S. Bumble Bee, by the genius Brit comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, from Beyond the Fringe and the BBC series Not Only . . . But Also, starring John Lennon in a cameo as a men’s room attendant. The L.S. Bumble Bee sounds like the ultimate Pepper parody—Freak out, baby, the Bee is coming!—but it came out months before Pepper, as if the comedy team was reeling from Pet Sounds and wondering how the Beatles might respond. Cook and Moore are a secret presence in Pepper—when the audience laughs in the theme song, it’s taken from a live recording of Beyond the Fringe, produced by George Martin.
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About Rob Sheffield
He is a long time contributing editor at Rolling Stone, writing about music, TV, and pop culture. Previously, he was a contributing editor at Blender, Spin and Details magazines. A native of Milton, Massachusetts, Sheffield has a bachelor's degree from Yale University and master's degree (1991) from the University of Virginia.
Sheffield lives in Brooklyn, New York.