The Intro

There are many weird chart-toppers but this is up there with the weirdest. Theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless) is a song about suicide, with lyrics written by a teenager and sung by the voices behind some of the most memorable US TV shows and advert jingles, 10 years after the film it came from was first released.

Before

M*A*S*H (1970) is a black comedy about the Korean War of 1950-53, directed by Robert Altman and based on the 1968 novel M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, by Richard Hooker. The film starred Donald Sutherland, EIliot Gould and Tom Skerrit as members of a unit stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. The movie struck a chord with a country in the midst of losing the Vietnam War and was one of the biggest films of the early 70s, winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Composer and arranger Johnny Mandel provided incidental music for M*A*S*H. In addition to film scores, Mandel was a jazz and pop musician, working with greats including Count Basie and Frank Sinatra.

The film M*A*S*H is bleaker than the subsequent series (which Altman hated). And this song’s title is more literal than you may realise. In one scene, the unit’s dentist, Walter ‘Painless Pole’ Waldowski (played by John Schuck) decides to kill himself. He’s such a womaniser, he decides he must be compensating for being gay. Yes, you read that right. Surmising that living as a gay man is too hard, he thinks suicide is the better option. The rest of the unit don’t believe him, and decide to organise a ‘Last Supper’-style event, where they give him a sleeping pill masquerading as poison.

Mandel was tasked with writing a song for Private Seidman (Ken Prymus) to sing during the Last Supper scene, with two stipulations. The first – it had to be called ‘Suicide Is Painless’, in reference to the dentist’s nickname and his fake cause of death, and the second – it had to be ‘the stupidest song ever written’.

Before Mandel came up with the tune, Altman tried to write some lyrics, but told the composer ‘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.’ But he reassured Mandel when he said ‘All is not lost. I’ve got a 15-year-old kid who’s a total idiot.’ When he presented him with the lyrics by his son Michael, Altman said they only took him five minutes to write. If this is true, it’s impressive, as although some of the words show signs of adolescent influence, Suicide Is Painless is pretty deep.

Altman was very impressed with the song’s appearance in the Last Supper scene. And rightly so, as Prymus’s performance is lovely. So he decided to upgrade it and it officially became Theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless). And it’s this version, playing out over the opening credits, that became the released single.

Altman chose to adopt a choral approach and enlisted members of The Ron Hicklin Singers. This Los Angeles-based group were the vocal equivalent of The Wrecking Crew, and often worked together to record thousands of TV and film themes, plus countless TV and radio jingles, from the 60s to the 80s. Some of the more memorable included the themes to Happy Days, Wonder Woman and Batman. But they’re perhaps best known in the US for their time as backing singers for The Partridge Family, the TV show/musical spin-off that made David Cassidy a teen idol. Theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless) features John and Tom Bahler, Ron Hicklin and Ian Freebairn-Smith.

Review

As unusual as this is, it’s a fascinating number 1 – and genuinely great too. The producer – Thomas Z Shephard – was an expert in musical theatre, classical and opera albums, and it really shows. The minimalistic production is spellbinding, capturing the genius of Mandel’s tune through a simple folk sound of acoustic guitar and bells. Using the voices of those better known for performing on ads and family comedies is a really clever touch – it gives the impression The Mash (as they were credited) are actually selling the concept of suicide to the listener. Very, very dark.

And although the lyrics were written by a teenager, there’s remarkable bleakness, insight and intelligence at times. The opening line referring to ‘early morning fog’ could be taken as symbolic of depression, or could be a literal reference to the conditions of the Korean War. The chorus, sometimes taken as nonsensical, is actually pretty deep. When someone is so in the grip of depression and suicidal thoughts, it can obviously feel ‘painless’ as a way out of problems. And the misery can be so all-encompassing, it really can feel like it doesn’t matter either way to the sufferer, that they really can ‘take or leave it’. But it can also refer to soldiers fighting a war too. They may well die anyway, so why not have that level of control to feel better, as a mental way out of the horrors of conflict? To say that suicide ‘brings on many changes’ is an understatement at best, for those left behind, but to someone wallowing in their own personal hell, that might be as deeply as they’re willing to think about family and friends. Haunting, to say the least, particularly this verse:

‘The sword of time will pierce our skins,
It doesn’t hurt when it beings,
But as it works its way back in,
The pain grows stronger, watch it grin’

Bloody hell.

The final verse however, augmented by strings, reads much more like the work of a teenager:

‘A brave man once requested me,
To answer questions that are key,
“Is it to be or not to be?”,
And I replied, “Oh why ask me?”.

Not great.

After

Originally released as Song from M*A*S*H in 1970, this single failed to trouble the UK top 10. The long-running TV series spin-off for CBS began in 1972. Starring Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers, the half-hour episodes were often more like a sitcom than a comedy drama. CBS tried to avoid controversy, keeping away from any overt protest at the still-ongoing Vietnam War. And they decided to ditch the disturbing lyrics to the film’s theme, using an instrumental version instead. Altman described the series as ‘the antithesis of what we were trying to do’.

The TV series was first broadcast in the UK in 1973 on BBC Two, and the film premiered on Christmas Eve, 1977 – two years after the end of the Vietnam War. The movie was repeated in 1980 on 10 Feb, and I can only think that the combination of this being shown, while the series was still running, caused the song to capture the public’s imagination. There seems to have been something in the air that spring/summer, as this was the second in a hat trick of sad songs at number 1, following What’s Another Year and preceding Crying.

M*A*S*H ended in 1983. The finale, aired in the US on 28 February, remains the most-watched episode of scripted TV ever – watched by an around 125 million Americans. The UK didn’t get to say goodbye until 27 December 1984.

Altman once claimed that while he made $70,000 for directing M*A*S*H the film, his son has made more than $1 million in royalties for the theme’s lyrics. Not bad work for ‘a total idiot’.

The Outro

In 1992 the Welsh alt-rockers Manic Street Preachers released a decent cover of Theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless) as a double-A-side for charity with Fatima Mansions’ cover of (Everything I Do) I Do it For You. Raising money for The Spastics Society, it peaked at seven in the charts. This singles has since proved to be sadly ironic, in light of their guitarist and songwriter Richey Edwards’ disappearance in 1995.

Remember people, if you’re feeling suicidal, help is available. Contact The Samaritans on 116 123.

The Info

Written by

Johnny Mandel & Mike Altman

Producer

Thomas Z Shephard

Weeks at number 1

3 (31 May-20 June)

Trivia

Births

1 June: Footballer Martin Devaney/Actor Oliver James
2 June: Rugby player Richard Skuse
4 June: Actor Philip Olivier
10 June: Chess master Jovanka Houska/Singer-songwriter James Walsh
11 June: Footballer Ernie Cooksey
12 June: Doctor Adam Kay

Deaths

1 June: Boxer George Marsden/Boxer Len Wickwar
5 June: Athlete William Seagrove
7 June: Writer Elizabeth Craig
9 June: Physician Sir Derrick Dunlop
10 June: Conservative MP Denis Hanley
12 June: Businessman Sir Billy Butlin
18 June: Oil executive Sir Maurice Bridgeman/Film director Terence Fisher/Geologist Neville George
19 June: Educator Gladys Wright
20 June: Golfer John Beck/Poet Amy Clarke

Meanwhile…

6 June: Two Malaysian men were jailed for 14 years after they were found guilty of running a drug smuggling ring in London.

12 June: Pregnant 16-year-old Gail Kinchen and her unborn baby were accidentally shot dead by a police marksman in a tragic accident. The officer had entered the Birmingham flat to encounter Kinchen’s boyfriend, David Pagett, who was holding her at gunpoint.

17 June: Secretary of State for Defence Francis Pym told the House of Commons that US nuclear cruise missiles were to be located at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire and the disused RAF Molesworth in Cambridgeshire.

19 June: Three unknown gunmen were shot dead by Iraqi security forces when they attacked the British embassy in Iraq.