Ben :bc: on Nostr: TIL the lyrics to the theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide is Painless) were written by the ...
TIL the lyrics to the theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide is Painless) were written by the Directors 15 y/o son
'Before one frame was shot, Mandel was commissioned by director Robert Altman to compose a song he wanted to be called “Suicide Is Painless” for the 1970 movie M*A*S*H. It was to go with the scene in which Capt. Walter “Painless Pole” Waldowski (John Schuck) climbs into a casket after a depressing episode of failed love-making with a nurse.
Altman also told Mandel, “It’s got to be the stupidest song ever written.”
“I said to myself, ‘Well, I can do stupid,’ ” Mandel recalled in an extensive 2008 interview with music journalist Marc Myers for the JazzWax blog. “Bob was going to take a shot at the lyrics. But he came back two days later and said, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s just too much stuff in this 45-year-old brain. I can’t write anything nearly as stupid as what we need.’ “
So it was left to Michael Altman, the director’s 15-year-old son, to come up with the lyrics, and Mandel wrote the music to accompany the kid’s words. (Robert Altman famously said that while he was paid $70,000 to direct M*A*S*H, his son made more than $1 million.)'
'Before one frame was shot, Mandel was commissioned by director Robert Altman to compose a song he wanted to be called “Suicide Is Painless” for the 1970 movie M*A*S*H. It was to go with the scene in which Capt. Walter “Painless Pole” Waldowski (John Schuck) climbs into a casket after a depressing episode of failed love-making with a nurse.
Altman also told Mandel, “It’s got to be the stupidest song ever written.”
“I said to myself, ‘Well, I can do stupid,’ ” Mandel recalled in an extensive 2008 interview with music journalist Marc Myers for the JazzWax blog. “Bob was going to take a shot at the lyrics. But he came back two days later and said, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s just too much stuff in this 45-year-old brain. I can’t write anything nearly as stupid as what we need.’ “
So it was left to Michael Altman, the director’s 15-year-old son, to come up with the lyrics, and Mandel wrote the music to accompany the kid’s words. (Robert Altman famously said that while he was paid $70,000 to direct M*A*S*H, his son made more than $1 million.)'