"Every Sperm Is Sacred" is a musical sketch from the film ''

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'', also known simply as ''The Meaning of Life'', is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. ''The Meaning of Life'' was the last f ...

''. A satire of Catholic teachings on reproduction that forbid masturbation and contraception, the song was released on the album '' Monty Python Sings'' and was nominated for a

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

Music Award for Best Original Song in a Film in 1983. André Jacquemin and David Howman wrote the music and

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. He received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, BAFTA Fellowship in 2013 and was knig ...

and

Terry Jones Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh actor, comedian, director, historian, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones a ...

wrote the lyrics and performed the song, which is hailed as one of the Pythons' great sketches. Viewing Python as the "great originator" of combining provocative humour and high-quality original music, ''

Family Guy ''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on January 31, 1999, following Super Bowl XXXIII, with the rest of the first season airing from April 11, 1999. Th ...

'' creator

Seth MacFarlane Seth Woodbury MacFarlane (; born October 26, 1973) is an American actor, animator, writer, producer, director, comedian, and singer. He is best known as the creator and star of the television series ''Family Guy'' (since 1999) and ''The Orvill ...

regarded the song as his favourite Python number, stating: "It's so beautifully written, it's musically and lyrically legit, the orchestrations are fantastic, the choreography and the presentation are very, very complex – it's treated seriously."

Content and production

The song is a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

of Catholic teachings on reproduction that forbid

masturbation Masturbation is a form of autoeroticism in which a person Sexual stimulation, sexually stimulates their own Sex organ, genitals for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure, usually to the point of orgasm. Stimulation may involve the use of han ...

and

contraception Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only be ...

by artificial means. The sketch, called "The

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

", is about a Catholic

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

worker played by

, with his wife played by director

. They have sixty-three children, who are about to be sold for scientific experimentation purposes because their parents can no longer afford to care for such a large family with the local mill being closed. When their children ask why they should not use any form of birth control, or why the father cannot perform self-castration, their father explains that this is against God's wishes, and breaks into song, the chorus of which is: The production in ''The Meaning of Life'' was filmed in Colne, Lancashire, and

Burnley, Lancashire Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, Lancashire, Preston, at th ...

, and choreographed by

Arlene Phillips Dame Arlene Phillips (born 22 May 1943) is an English choreographer, theatre director, talent scout, former television judge, presenter, and dancer. She reached mainstream fame on television as a judge on ''Strictly Come Dancing'' (2004-2008) a ...

to a storyboard by Jones. The hearty and cheerful nature of the musical number is counterpointed as the children are marched off to their fate as the song ends, singing a dour rendition of the chorus as their middle-aged

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

neighbours (played by

Graham Chapman Graham Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the Surreal humour, surrealist comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel (Monty Py ...

and

Eric Idle Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English actor, comedian, songwriter, musician, screenwriter and playwright. He was a member of the British comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band the Rutles. Idle studied English at Pembroke Co ...

) comment on the teachings of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. They add that they have two children, which is the exact number of times they have had sex in their marriage. The grounds of Cartwright Hall art gallery in

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

, West Yorkshire, was used as a location for the singing and dancing nurses. The song is a style pastiche of the song " Consider Yourself", from the musical ''

Oliver! ''Oliver!'' is a stage musical, with book, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the 1838 novel ''Oliver Twist'' by Charles Dickens. It premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre, southwest London in 1960 before opening in the W ...

'' by

Lionel Bart Lionel Bart (1 August 1930 – 3 April 1999) was an English writer and composer of pop music and musicals. He wrote Tommy Steele's "Rock with the Caveman" and was the sole creator of the musical ''Oliver!'' (1960). With ''Oliver!'' and his work ...

. Later, Jones denied that it was explicitly written to make fun of the genre of

musical comedy Musical theatre is a form of theatre, theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, ...

: Every Sperm is Sacred' is not a parody of these things, it just ''is'' those things, it's a musical song, it's a hymn, it's a Lionel Bart-style musical, but it's not making fun of a Lionel Bart-style musical." The song was performed at '' Monty Python Live (Mostly)'', with Idle singing Palin's part. It was also followed by the discussion from the Protestant married couple, with Palin and Jones playing the Protestant husband and wife respectively.

Influence

Sexuality and reproduction

The phrase "every sperm is sacred" has become almost proverbial in the field of

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, ...

and

human sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

and

reproduction Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. There are two forms of reproduction: Asexual reproduction, asexual and Sexual ...

. This extends to such areas as

cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...

, where the song is used to criticize anti-cloning activists who argue that every embryo or fertilized egg is sacred. Abortion-rights activists have sung the song outside abortion clinics to ridicule their opponents, legal scholars have alluded to it in discussions of women's reproductive rights, and Emily Martin describes its usage as a ''

reductio ad absurdum In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical argument'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absur ...

'' of anti-abortion positions.

Religion

The religious import of the sketch is significant, and is reflected in the widely dispersed usage of the phrase. In the book ''Monty Python and Philosophy'', the argument is teased out to reach a broader (still humorous) conclusion: "The Pythons ask us to consider the consequences of the belief that God cares about our reproductive practices and sees everything. If so, then he watches our sexual activities. ...Christians must concede that all things considered, this atching people have sexis one of God's less onerous activities."

Philip Jenkins Philip Jenkins (born April 3, 1952) is a professor of history at Baylor University in the United States, and co-director for Baylor's Program on Historical Studies of Religion in the Institute for Studies of Religion. He is also the Edwin Erle S ...

discusses the sketch as an important sign of a growing willingness in the popular media of the 1970s and 1980s to criticize the Catholic Church, saying that "Catholic attitudes toward sex and contraception are ruthlessly parodied" in the song, proving that "Catholicism was available as a legitimate subject of serious fiction."

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

, in his '' The God Delusion'', cites the song for that reason, the illustration of the "surreal idiocy" of some pro-religion,

anti-abortion Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its Abortion by country, legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in r ...

arguments.

Masturbation

It is sometimes difficult to separate the comic from the serious application of the phrase, and two recent publications on the

penis A penis (; : penises or penes) is a sex organ through which male and hermaphrodite animals expel semen during copulation (zoology), copulation, and through which male placental mammals and marsupials also Urination, urinate. The term ''pen ...

use it for precisely that purpose, ''Talking Cock'', by

Richard Herring Richard Keith Herring (born 12 July 1967) is an English stand-up comedian and writer whose early work includes the comedy double act Lee and Herring (alongside Stewart Lee). He is described by ''The British Theatre Guide'' as "one of the leadin ...

, and ''Dick: A User's Guide''. In both cases, the sketch is used to ridicule those who condemn

, and sex for any purpose other than

procreation Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. There are two forms of reproduction: asexual and sexual. In asexual reprod ...

Reverse censorship

According to the interview with Palin on the DVD extras, he said ''"''at the end of my sock''"'' in the original scene, with the word " cock" being overdubbed later. This was done because the scene featured numerous

underage In law, a minor is someone under a certain age, usually the age of majority, which demarcates an underage individual from legal adulthood. The age of majority depends upon jurisdiction and application, but it is commonly 18. ''Minor'' may also ...

children and the Pythons were already concerned they were "pushing the limit". Years later, several of the child actors stated they had no idea what they were singing about.

References

External links

''Every Sperm is Sacred - Monty Python's The Meaning of Life''
- Official Monty Python channel on YouTube. {{authority control 1983 songs Criticism of the Catholic Church Monty Python songs Satirical songs Black comedy music Songs critical of religion Songs written by Michael Palin Songs written by Terry Jones Semen