To Eleven and Beyond: Ten + 1 Best Quotes from This Is Spinal Tap

These go to eleven.

Original paintings by Hamell!

As with all vital tasks this will prove difficult. Owing as nearly every frame of Rob Reiner's astonishing meditation on life and art This Is Spinal Tap — which turns forty this month — contains a bon mot or three of surpassing wisdom-of-the-ages or a spectacle the likes of which couldn’t be more gratifying, it will be difficult to render the final number down to eleven. Feelings will be hurt, recriminations will ensue, and yes it is possible mistakes will be made. Still we persevere in the knowledge that every great enterprise is a risk/reward gambit at best — let history be the judge of what we do or do not accomplish here. Enough of my yakkin’. Let's get to  some moments.

“Have a good time, all the time.”  — Viv Savage, Spinal Tap keyboardist

Bassist Derek Smalls justifiably has a reputation as Spinal Tap’s philosopher king, but it’s possible that no utterance more clearly articulates the forward thrust of life’s very purpose like this one from Tap’s enigmatic and rarely heard from keyboardist Viv Savage. Stashed during the credit sequence at the end of the film, he is responding to filmmaker Marty DeBergi’s probing question “If I were to ask you what your philosophy of life or your creed, what would that be?” Savage looks like he has been waiting his entire existence to answer this. He does not pause to think — he is ready. He relishes the moment, chewing each word like a candy bar. His eyes convey madness, but the sentiment is undeniably trenchant. As one might discern from his moniker, Savage is an absolute animal — check out his riotous work on the keys on “Rock ‘n’ Roll Creation” — but as ever the authentic truth frequently attends from those who dare to dwell near the edge. Whether his idea of a good time hews closer to Nietzsche or your average travel show host is unclear — we simply do not know enough about Savage to say. But the resonance of his words is indisputable. 

“Well, you should have seen the cover they wanted to do! It wasn't a glove, believe me.” — Ian Faith, Spinal Tap manager

It’s always hard to deal with The Man, and no one feels that burden more acutely than Tap manager Ian Faith. When the original cover of their new record Smell the Glove is rejected by Polymer Records on the basis of its obvious offensiveness, Faith leaps quickly into action. Who knows what the above quote implies about what might have been on the cover? Let's ignore that for a minute. The fact is, he is negotiating. This is what a manager is paid to do. He’s wheedling out a concession. Spinal Tap’s rank and file may not understand it in the moment, but Faith has cut a deal for a cover like a black mirror. Something iconic. As Tap co-lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel puts it:

“None More Black.”  - Nigel Tufnel - co-lead guitar

They say the darkest hour is right before the dawn. Spinal Tap is unusual (though not unprecedented) in that they possess two geniuses. David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel first encountered themselves as lads, and now, some years later the vow won’t break. When Smell the Glove in its final form finally arrives at a Tap soundcheck, we experience one of the first major cleavages in the Tufnel-St. Hubbins rapport. Rough-and-tumble Tufnel concedes it looks like black leather. The spiritual St. Hubbins strenuously objects that it looks like death. Had the seeds of dissension rooted in some sex farm? Everyone agrees with Tufnel’s surmise that in pigment terms the album’s black cover could be none more black. The band plays on.

“I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything.” David St. Hubbins — lead singer, co-lead guitar

Spinal Tap brims  with thinkers, but frontman David St. Hubbins is the lodestar. Derek Smalls compares him to fire and Nigel to ice, and I’ll buy that. St. Hubbins’s mind is an inferno. In any ranking of the overlooked heuristics, I think this has a real shot at the prize. For me, the “virtually” does a lot of work. St. Hubbins believes most things, but rejects others. What crosses his personal radar as “unbelievable” must be amazing. Is he a dreamer? No doubt. More so than Nigel, he was obviously the engine behind “Flower People.” The dislocation of modern times. One drummer expires after the next in a sad and seemingly meaningless procession. When you can’t feel anything at all. 

“As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock ‘n’ roll.” — Mick Shrimpton — current Spinal Tap drummer at the time of filming

Heretical as it seems. Spinal Tap did turn the page on their rock ‘n’ roll commitment in the hectic, immediate days after Nigel’s departure when they cooked up Spinal Tap: Mach 2 at a festival setting in a non-specific theme park, with Jeanine on tambourine and the group in an entirely different headspace. St. Hubbins and Smalls have plainly discussed it before: Jazz Odyssey. Now, having finally actualized the long range coup that was always at heart of the Tufnel dissension, they can finally explore fusion. The jazz insurrection is short-lived. The audience response is a thumbs down. 

“Well I’m sure I would feel worse if I wasn’t under such heavy sedation.” — David St. Hubbins — lead singer, co-lead guitar

This is after he and Nigel have broken up.  The tension had been building, storm clouds gathered. Artistic disagreements about the cover of Smell the Glove, and roiling in-studio frustration too: the dust-up over the rock section of “America.” And Jeanine, of course, the “Australian’s nightmare.” St. Hubbins is explaining to Marty DeBergi: There have been 37 members in Spinal Tap. “I wouldn’t miss him anymore than I might miss Ross McLaughlin or Denny Schindler.” Marty DeBergi can’t stand for that: “I can’t believe you're lumping Nigel in with these people you played with a short period of time.” That’s when St. Hubbins says the thing about the sedation, clearly ruffled by the question, before haughtily leaving off: “we shan't work together again.”

“Do a good show, all right?” - Nigel Tufnel, co-lead guitar to co-lead guitar and lead singer David St. Hubbins before a sold-out concert in Tokyo

Three weeks later, St. Hubbins and Tufnel reunite. Prompted by St. Hubbins’ unsubtle head gestures, Tufnel runs onstage for his crucial solo on “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” to the ecstatic delight of the assembled audience. A Tap united cannot fall.

“We've got armadillos in our trousers. It's really quite frightening.” — Nigel Tufnel, co-lead guitar

Once through security check. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. Twice through security check. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. Third time through security: an all-hands-on-deck full-body scan. The onsite personnel waves a security wand and it keeps going off near the crotch. Out, eventually, comes the cucumber wrapped in foil. And fair enough, for the size. But why in the foil? Is this just some kind of insulation against fruit burn, or is this just how Derek Smalls, Spinal Tap philosopher king, gets his kicks at airports? Shenanigans of this sort are the lingua-franca of classic era rock groups. You read about all this kind of stuff in the literature: fake dicks, plaster dicks, animals placed in tight pants. Nigel’s not wrong. Whatever’s in their trousers is frightening. 

“Do you feel that playing rock 'n' roll music keeps you a child? That is, keeps you in a state of arrested development?” — Marty DeBergi interviewing Derek Smalls

Inevitably, on some or every level, This Is Spinal Tap is the great meditation on Boomer culture, one which provides an early diagnoses of many of the traits that would come to define the aging process of the most powerful demographic group of the 20th century: limitless vanity, questionable taste, a low-bottom addiction to cultural relevance and an almost complete absence of self-awareness. Coming fifteen years after the origin-myth of Woodstock and ten years prior to the repellently self-aggrandizing Forrest Gump, This Is Spinal Tap is a snapshot of the Me Generation before it learned to cynically refine and weaponize the nostalgic attachment of rock ‘n’ roll into a commercial and political behemoth. 

“Money Talks and Bullshit Walks” — Bobbi Flekman, publicist at Polymer Records

Here’s a shout out to the toughest lady in the joint, Bobbi Flekman. At base, This Is Spinal Tap is a fragile story which renders a vulnerable band about to be the first cut from rock ‘n’ roll’s Imperial phase, attempting to assemble their egos in time for the crash landing. She is the film's Cassandra. If you watch back you know within the first ten minutes that Smell the Glove has no chance at succeeding. Tap and Ian Faith have no idea what she means when she speaks this malediction. But she’s right: it was the 1980s and things were changing. You could maybe, fractionally, be less awful to women in that moment than had been the case two years previous. They band was nonplussed, but undeterred. The fact that Spinal Tap can never quite grasp their anachronism, is the very thing that accounts for their staying power and their poignance. The fact that Bobbi Flekman called them early and often on their bullshit is inspiring,

“A little too much fucking perspective.” — David St. Hubbins — Elvis’s Graveyard — lead singer, co-lead guitar

They hover around Elvis Presley’s grave in Graceland. They do not know what to say. This Is Spinal Tap was filmed in 1983, and consider those conditions. Elvis had died just six years ago when they filmed the scene. We think of him zombified by now, but at that time there was every reason to expect Elvis to spring from his grave and karate attack Spinal Tap. But he did not. They sing, or attempt to sing, “Heartbreak Hotel” in harmony. Nigel says: “It really puts perspective on things.” David speaks his maledictions. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but it’s the most suddenly  painful moment in the picture. The doctrine of rock is a long interest loan on a short term life, the decision to place the most marginal personalities in the highest stress circumstances and then benefit from the endlessly remunerative flourishing garden of their passing. The King is gone but not forgotten by Spinal Tap. An argument breaks out, as to whether their three-part doo-wop version has turned into some manner of “Barbershop Raga.” Maybe so — it’s at best unhandsome — but it’s still rock ‘n’ roll to me.