It’s one hilarious scene after another in This is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner’s clever (and ground-breaking) “mockumentory” about the witless mediocrities of an aging prog-rock/hair metal band struggling to remain relevant and keep their day jobs whilst fumbling from one humiliating fiasco to the next. The Stonehenge bit is the part that people seem most apt to remember, so here it is, from Nigel’s back-of-the-napkin concept drawing, to the fabricator’s presentation of the finished product (that’s a young Angelica Huston), through the debacle on stage, and the bitter backstage aftermath. Unfortunately, the clip omits what I always thought was the best line, delivered by David St. Hubbins to their manager when the latter points out that the diminutive trilithon replica was actually assembled precisely to match Nigel’s rough blueprint, which mixed up the symbol for “feet” with the one for “inches”: “But you’re not as confused as him, are you? It’s not your job to be as confused as Nigel”.
Here:
The most surprising aspect of the film was the band’s delightfully godawful music, which was actually almost exactly like the shite then being pumped out by the bands of the era, only a little more listenable, all of it written, believe it or not, by Reiner and the actors playing the band, Christopher Guest, David McKean, and Harry Shearer. For me, the most deliciously satirical number was Big Bottom, the lyrics of which were wittier than anything from the supposed “hard rock” of the era:
The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin’
That’s what I said
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read
My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I’d like to sink her with my pink torpedo
Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about bum cakes, my girl’s got ’em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?
Genius! Then there’s this little musical interlude, with Nigel coming off like a student of music theory before dropping the hammer:
The hell of it is, Lick My Love Pump actually does sound kind of pretty, doesn’t it?
Throughout, they’re all just so endearingly, obliviously befuddled, their morale declining as cock-up upon cock-up combines with the usual toxic group dynamics (there’s even a Yoko Ono/Linda McCartney stand-in), while the disapproving oversight of their corporate record company overlords threatens to derail what’s left of their career (“listen”, pleads the manager, dealing with the wrath of one executive, “you should have seen what they wanted to put on the cover”). In one scene they literally get lost in the labyrinth of hallways beneath the stadium, and can’t find the stage; in another they find themselves booked into some sort of dance party on a frigging air force base; finally, as the group disintegrates, and Nigel marches out in a huff, taking his songs with him, the rump is left to play to half empty amphitheatres in amusement parks, where they try something new by performing bassist Derek’s Jazz Odyssey (a “free form jazz exploration”). Much of their charmingly dim-witted banter was improvised, and I’ve always wondered how much of the “this goes to eleven” scene was just Christopher Guest making stuff up off the top of his head (Nigel, describing a favourite guitar: “It’s famous for its sustain, I mean you can just hold it, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa – you could go have a bite, and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”)
You cant help but love the adorable dum-dums, and their terrible songs too. Listen, I’d take these guys over Twisted Sister or Quiet Riot every day of the week.
Watch this, on the creation of Nigel:
the needlefish 