My Top 1000 Songs #867: Piggy In The Middle

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Back in the late 70s, one of Chicago's classic rock stations--I think it was WLUP (The Loop! Long-since sold and turned into a Christian radio station, ugh)--would have an annual Beatles weekend, 72 straight hours of nothing but Beatles and Beatles-related music. I was still a pre-teen at the time, first getting into the band, familiar with the obvious hits but my allowance wasn't enough to finance many actual LP purchases. So I'd just sit by my radio as much as possible all weekend, taking it all in.

I'm pretty sure that was the context where I first heard the Rutles' "Piggy In The Middle." Which was essentially "I Am The Walrus," already a personal favorite back then (off the Blue Album hits collection; I didn't have the proper Magical Mystery Tour LP yet), but with even more nonsensical lyrics. I doubt I had a clue what exactly it was at the time--the Beatles goofing off? Someone else pretending to be the Beatles? But it was great, and just another component of the wondrous Beatles catalog that had captured my imagination.

Not long after that that I saw the Rutles' All You Need Is Cash mockumentary on tv, with music from the Bonzo Dog Band's Neil Innes (yep, we were just talking about him earlier this month), featuring  Monty Python's Eric Idle and a bunch of rock stars doing a funny (if not well-aged) faux history of the imaginary Rutles. Picked up the album as well, an alternate-universe Beatles compilation that was neither tribute nor parody, just some amazing (albeit silly) songs that captured every facet of the band's stylistic changes.

I still like it nearly as much as any Beatles record.

Alternate video:
Live 2013:


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