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In this excerpt, Idle describes how the song totally got away from him … in a good way.
And not just in the Top 10 charts.
It has remained there ever since.
Beating out even Elvis.
Youve got to love the Brits.
First of all, who would evenhavesuch a chart?
It probably replaced Spam, Spam, Spam at Viking funerals.
It began at Grahams [Chapman, fellow Python member] memorial.
I was still singing it to Graham, but now for the final time.
He had died with exquisite timing on October 4, 1989, the eve of Monty Pythons twentieth anniversary.
It was a shock.
This was one ofus.Mike [Palin]and Terry J.
[Jones]were with him at the end.
John[Cleese]wept inconsolably.
I was at home writing a song for him, Life Will Get You in the End.
I finally finished it when George [Harrison] died.
I can still remember Steves shocked look of horror as he watched an emaciated Graham being carried in.
Nobody had warned him.
We did another shot where Steve asked to-camera where all the Pythons were today and then opened a closet.
It would be the last time we were all together.
Perhaps he was joking.
Maybe he was trying to cheer me up.
Who knows, but it would be the last time I saw him.
It was particularly hard to get through, and I almost lost it.
It was even harder because, thanks to John Cleese, the memorial had become a roast.
Graham Chapman is no more.
He has ceased to be.
Bereft of life, he rests in peace.
He has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
And I say good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard.
I hope he fries.
And I say that because if I hadnt said something inappropriate he would never have forgiven me.
It was one of Johns finest moments.
From that point on, the afternoon became uproarious.
Well, notnow… but in about twenty minutes.
How ironic that Graham, who was always late, left so early.
That really should have been it for the song, except that it wasnt.
Bizarrely, it was about to become a popular hit.
One day in 1991, Gary said to me, You know theyre singing your song on the terraces.
Apparently, football fans had taken to singing it when their sides were losing helplessly.
It was strangely exciting as each week it rose higher and higher.
Excerpted fromAlways Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiographyby Eric Idle.
Copyright 2018 by Rutland California Weekend, Inc.
Published by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House.
