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"Every Sperm Is Sacred" is a musical sketch from the filmMonty Python's The Meaning of Life. A satire of Catholic teachings on reproduction that forbid masturbation and contraception, the song was released on the albumMonty Python Sings and was nominated for aBAFTA Music Award for Best Original Song in a Film in 1983.[1][2]
André Jacquemin and David Howman wrote the music andMichael Palin andTerry Jones wrote the lyrics and performed the song,[3] which is hailed as one of the Pythons' great sketches.[4] Viewing Python as the "great originator" of combining provocative humour and high-quality original music,Family Guy creatorSeth MacFarlane 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."[5]
The song is asatire ofCatholic teachings on reproduction that forbidmasturbation andcontraception by artificial means. The sketch, called "TheThird World", is about a CatholicYorkshire worker played byMichael Palin, with his wife played by directorTerry Jones. 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:
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.
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The production inThe Meaning of Life was filmed inColne, Lancashire, andBurnley, Lancashire, and choreographed byArlene Phillips to a storyboard by Jones.[6] 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-agedProtestant neighbours (played byGraham Chapman andEric Idle) comment on the teachings of theCatholic Church. They add that they have two children, which is the exact number of times they have had sex in their marriage. The grounds ofCartwright Hall art gallery inBradford, West Yorkshire, was used as a location for the singing and dancing nurses.[7]
The song is astyle pastiche of the song "Consider Yourself", from the musicalOliver! byLionel Bart. Later, Jones denied that it was explicitly written to make fun of the genre ofmusical comedy:"'Every Sperm is Sacred' is not a parody of these things, it justis 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."[1]
The song was performed atMonty 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.
The phrase "every sperm is sacred" has become almost proverbial in the field ofanimal[8] andhuman sexuality andreproduction.[9] This extends to such areas ascloning, where the song is used to criticize anti-cloning activists who argue that every embryo or fertilized egg is sacred.[10]Abortion-rights activists have sung the song outsideabortion clinics to ridicule their opponents,[11] legal scholars have alluded to it in discussions of women's reproductive rights,[12] andEmily Martin describes its usage as areductio ad absurdum of anti-abortion positions.[13]
The religious import of the sketch is significant, and is reflected in the widely dispersed usage of the phrase. In the bookMonty 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 [watching people have sex] is one of God's less onerous activities."[14]Philip Jenkins 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."[15]Richard Dawkins, in hisThe God Delusion, cites the song for that reason, the illustration of the "surreal idiocy" of some pro-religion,anti-abortion arguments.[16]
It is sometimes difficult to separate the comic from the serious application of the phrase, and two recent publications on thepenis use it for precisely that purpose,Talking Cock, byRichard Herring,[17] andDick: A User's Guide.[18] In both cases, the sketch is used to ridicule those who condemnmasturbation, andsex for any purpose other thanprocreation.
According to the interview with Palin on the DVD extras, he said"at the end of mysock" in the original scene, with the word "cock" being overdubbed later. This was done because the scene featured numerous young 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.[19]
