02. Don't Be Silly Chumps!

02. "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" by Monty Python (but especially Eric Idle)

Originally, this song was only written to be the ending musical dance scene for "The Life of Brian."



The dark humor of the song arises from the juxtaposition of the cheery song with the image of dozens of men being crucified. And this humor resonated with many people, but especially the British. In fact, during the Falklands War, the British ship HMS Shetfield was hit by a missile, and as it sank, the crew sang "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" while waiting to be rescued. And the song has become a funeral favorite among many, including the funerals for members of Monty Python.

So now it's taken on the status of a national anthem, as seen in the performance of the song during the Olympics in England.



Eric also sang it for Prince Charles' 60th birthday celebration, which is my second-favorite version.


But in the end, the version I like the best is the original because of something that happened to me on my mission. Before I left for the MTC, I went to my favorite college professor, Larry Thompson, who also happened to be my bishop in the campus ward, and I asked him for any advice he might have before I went off on my mission in a week or so. He said, "Well...don't forget to laugh."

I was somewhat disappointed by this advice, as I had hoped that with all of the inspirational things he had said in his English class, he'd say something that was a bit more motivational than that. But I thanked him for the advice and for all that he'd done for me, and left his office and the campus. A week later, I was in the MTC, and I promptly forgot about his advice and started to take things very seriously. After all, my family was sacrificing a lot for me to be there. My dad had cancer, and before I left, he told me that if his surgery didn't work and he died while I was in Sweden, to not come home for the funeral. His reasoning was that there wasn't anything I could do for him at home, and once he was gone, there wouldn't be anything I could do for him then either. Anyway, I took my mission seriously because I thought that if my family was going through all of that stuff without me, I should at least try my hardest to do the best job possible.

Three and a half months after I spoke with Bishop Thompson, I found myself in Sweden with a companion that I hated being with--so much so that I had asked the mission president if I could be transferred. When the president asked me to hold on for two more weeks, I said, "Okay, if that's what you need me to do." Then I got on a plane with my companion and sunk into a deep depression. The depression got deeper when we got off the plane and had to bike the five miles back to our apartment because my companion was too cheap to pay for a taxi. About a half mile from the airport, my bike tire went flat. I began to walk the rest of the way to our apartment while my companion rode his bike well ahead of me.

I then started thinking to myself about how bad things were. I was in a foreign country where everybody hated me, I couldn't understand a damn thing anyone said, even after six weeks of being there, and I was stuck with a companion that I hated. I was a thousand miles away from home and really worried about whether my dad would survive the cancer surgery. It was dark, and I was tired, and there was nothing I could do to improve my situation. I then quietly said to myself outloud, "This is the worst my life has ever been. It just can't get any worse than this." Then thirty seconds later, it started to rain.

And I involuntarily laughed. It was just too damn absurd and dark and funny for me not to laugh. Yes, life could get worse (it eventually did...many, many times), and in response I could cry or I could laugh. That was my choice. And at that particular moment, I chose to laugh. And then I realized that Larry Thompson's advice suddenly became the best damn advice anyone had ever given me, and it remains as such to this day.

This song is the musical version of that advice, and that's why it is the almost-number-one song on my top 200 list.

THE END IS NIGH!