MASH – "Theme From M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless)"

always loved this one. one of the truest expressins of melancholy ever to hit number one. if only manic street preachers hadn’t covered it…

Round about this time, when I was a regular at Manchester United games, I’d have my trusty transistor with me as I approached the ground, listening to Piccadilly Radio, and I’d always listen out for the record that was playing as I reached the forecourt of Old Trafford. If it was one I liked, it’d be a good omen for the match; if it wasn’t, another frustrating afternoon lay ahead (and believe me, you didn’t go to Old Trafford in those days with anything like the confidence you would now).

I used to extend that principle to other areas, such as noting what was the last song on the radio before an exam (as I’ve already mentioned, the last song I heard before my London University interview was “London Calling”, which turned out pretty well). And so, to fall in with this mild superstition, what was number one when I took my A-levels? “Suicide is Painless”. Thanks a bunch, British record-buying public…

Yes, it’s a strange one, bleak if you want to take it that way, but rather easy listening, the kind of dreamy stuff you might have heard near the top of the US charts during the summer of love. No doubt it meant more to fans of the show, but it was one I never got into despite seeing the odd episode. Even so, it’s hard to hear it without visualising the opening credits. As lonepilgrim notes, it was another success to be chalked up to Noel Edmonds’ Sunday morning show, which got a devoted following, Edmonds being able to take it easier and expand features of his show more than he could on the breakfast programme. This and “Captain Beaky” were among the main beneficiaries.

As a Yank who’s very familiar with the TV show, I have to ask: was it the TV version (an instrumental) that went to No. 1, or was it the film version (with lyrics)? They’re very different pieces of music, in any event.

Worth noting (because it makes this all the more bizarre at #1), that this was not the tv series’ theme tune – that was the instrumental version.

The vocal version comes from the opening credits of the movie, and is also played during an appropriate scene later on.

It was always one of these songs people wrote in to newspapers about – who sings it? where can I get it? etc., so it’s maybe not a surprise it was a hit, but #1??

I always thought the Manson/Beach Boys thing was called “Cease To Exist” (or at least, I thought the Throbbing Gristle track of the same name was named after the Manson/Beach Boys thing).

My understanding was that Manson (who was a buddy of Dennis Wilson’s for a while) presented it to the BBs as “Cease To Exist” and they altered it to “Cease To Resist”.

The Manic Street Preachers’ version is pretty fantastic, actually – very spacious and with nice guitar/feedback throughout, plus they looked terrific at the time. Obviously it builds on how strong the songwriting is (I never knew a 14-year-old was responsible!), but there’s a howl of anguish about it that gives their version a more personal meaning. I heard the original much later, and was consequently surprised at how gentle it is – it sounds more like a genre exercise to me now, which I guess gives it an appropriate certain tension of its own

I’m not sure of the characters name but there was a troubador who appeared occasionally in MASH. That would be Loudon Wainwright III ( of “Dead Skunk” in the middle of the road fame). Father of , you guessed it, Rufus and Martha Wainwright. And I think the mother of both is fellow Canuck , Kate McGarrigle.

I always enjoyed his off beat appearances.

That little graphic of the peace sign with women’s legs alternately fascinated/creeped me out as a kid – don’t suppose any designer could get away with that these days…the MASH poster of today would be close-ups of Sutherland’s and Gould’s faces.

surely numan is saying “we are glass” in a good way

Having grown up on the TV show, I think it was only around the third time of watching that I actually liked the movie. The first time I was baffled by the lack of obvious anti-war sentiment and taken aback by the sheer crudeness of the sexism. It’s not one of Altman’s great films, although it did get his career underway. In retrospect I’ve always thought of the TV show as cloying, but I watched a few episodes on Paramount a couple of years back and they weren’t too bad.
I’m firmly in the camp that says the song is worth more than a 4.

I too am in the camp of “more than a four”. I’d go for a six or seven. I remember this as a kiddie before I really saw MASH the TV series (and way before I saw MASH the film) and I think I appreciated its pure whistleability. I think I have always been quite awed by its anonymity – though its not the only time the configuration “BAND NAME – Theme From Band Name” will be troubling us. But not knowing who this MASH was sort of troubled me. Pop music was, at this point to me, all about the pop star. I can’t remember how it was done on Top Of The Pops, Pans People I guess.

As for relative qualities of MASH’s, I think the film stands up quite will in context of the early seventies (and is better than the film version of Catch-22). Its clearly Altman trying to fight against the structure of cinema – which is apt as the original book of MASH (worse that book Catch 22) is a slimly plotted set of annecdotes more than anything else. Resonance for the film comes from Vietnam which is lost latterly though Gould is good value for money. Mark’s right about its sexism though.

The TV series is a much stranger beast, which oddly works better due to its formatting straight jacket (which is occasionally devestating in episodes where they break the format). Though it is amazing the difference a laughtrack makes to it – the US version with the track seems alien and wrong, where is this audience in Korea and why aren’t they helping. I think the hierachy goes something like:

TV Series without laughtrack
Film
Book
TV Series with Laughtrack
AfterMash

The “band”, as I recall from a Record Mirror Chartwatch from 1980, were The New Marketts – resumably a New Sekers type spin-off from the surf group who had a 1964 Top 10 hit in the US with Out Of Limits. This was the name on the first US pressing of Theme From MASH.

Going further down a dark lane… it first came out in the UK in 1970 as The Song From Mash by The Mash, which presumably sounded better than “The New Somebody-you’d-never-heard-of-in-the-first-place”.

Well, unless Suicide was the name of your dog…

One time, the BBC got the wrong version of one episode, and for the want of the right one, aired it. That week, they had loads of complaints. Yep, laughter track.

I’d argue that the Manic Street Preachers version is a rare example of a cover that improves on the original.

I played this on tenor horn in a regional competition when I was around 10 years old, and came second. In hindsight it was an odd choice, but at the time it seemed quite normal.

i’m definitely in the more than a four camp. at the very least a couple of extra points are deserved for the scene in gregory’s girl where gregory’s ten year old nemesis hangs around a street corner whistling this cockily.

heh!

I saw Miss Saigon, the stage musical. Not far off Bangkok, settingwise.. And yes, helicopters. But it was lights/mirrors/sounds rather than an actual mock-up…

This single had an educationl value for seven-year old Billy, as I was moved to ask “Mummy, what does suicide mean?”. Once I’d been informed, I think that I automatically treated the song as an important work of art.

Actually, I do really like this a lot now. I think that it has a really shadowy and ghostly feel to it. You could castigate the lyrics for being adolescent, but I’d reflect that in some instances, in the mix of emotions, there’s a sense of vainglory in suicide that is a bit adolescent…

All of this is accentuated in the Manics version which is almost unbearably thrilling, the characteristicly barked lyrics and approximation of Guns ‘n’ Roses riffs, giving it a scorched earth sensation of either life itself crashing out in an act of self-immolation, or something new (harsher but new) arising from an act of destruction.

Space Oddity and Stand By Your Man were both six years old when they got to no.1. If it wasn’t for pesky Bo Rhap keeping it at 2, Laurel & Hardy’s Trail Of The Lonesome Pine would trash allcomers.

#43 yes, of course, with “Cease to resist” being the altered opening line. Thanks for the correction!

Going back to my thoughts at 40… the Manics do sound joyously cathartic to me (albeit in a genuinely ‘Manic’ depressive up phase). There’s something quite fun about their interpretation – in the face of despair and horror – in what I consider to be an authentically rock ‘n’ roll fashion.

This is a very interesting article. I have reached this as I am researching things for my Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy assignment. Well, our teacher made us listen to the song “Suicide is Painless” in class before he said that we had to connect it with Hamlet in our analysis. Thus, if anyone finds any analysis in this, please email me the site to musicxemo@aol.com . Thank you =D

Altman’s movie was a thinly disguised protest against Vietnam. By 1970, LBJ had been forced to stand down after the Tet offensive in ’68. Popular opinion turned against America’s involvement as more young men returned home in coffins or wheelchairs. Nixon began to withdraw troops, while approving CIA counterinsurgency operations in Cambodia and Laos. Against all this, is the fag end of hippiedom and the hangovers from Woodstock and Altamont. The film was a success which touched a nerve with Liberal America.

Young Mike appears to be the winner financially, earning a shitload of royalties from the song. There’s something slightly endearing about a 14 year old writing a hit song and seeing it get to the top albeit 10 years later. There’s hope for many adolescent bedroom lyricists out there. The suicide aspect from an Ian Curtis point of view seems to be an unhappy coincidence. I would never attribute Mr Noel Edmonds pinning his colours to Joy Division’s mast. He was always a lover of whimsy and japery and if he ever gazed into an abyss, his first thought would be “we’re gonna need more custard”. So why then did he go for the M*A*S*H theme in such a big way? The dreaminess and airbrushed feel of the song removes it from any starkness emotionally. The session singers with their close harmonies suck you in and force the lyrics to wash over you without their meaning or message to penetrate, which makes sense really when you consider the film itself is the message. If Edmonds was a fan of the film or Altman’s work then he’s simply enforcing his tastes upon the British public from his DJ booth at Radio 1. His power was not to be underestimated, wresting the coveted breakfast slot from Tony Blackburn, Noel gives us prank calls and John Snagg. His Lord of Tomfoolery persona was popular at pre-playlist R1. Railing against new wave and post-punk, Edmonds favours disco, soft-rock and ballads. People listened to him and were entertained by him. He was ice to Tiswas’ fire on a Saturday morning. He was Middle England. He was mediocrity. He was safe.

And that’s what “Suicide Is Painless” is. You listen to the song, you watch the movie, you laugh at Klinger as he endures his own personal Catch 22 in the TV series, and you know you are safe. You’ll go to bed in 1980 and be woken by your radio alarm clock to the safe tones of Edmonds winding up some poor sap on the other end of a phone, ignoring the running sore Stateside as America comes to terms with 50,000 war dead 5 years after the last chopper leaves Saigon.