This Is Spinal Tap

This is Spinal Tap is a 1984 "rockumentary" about the world's loudest band, the British heavy metal group Spinal Tap.
 * Directed by Rob Reiner and largely improvised by the main players Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean,  and Harry Shearer.

Does for rock and roll what "The Sound of Music" did for hills

Marty DiBergi

 * [introducing the film] I wanted to capture the... the sights, the sounds... the smells of a hard-working rock band, on the road. And I got that; I got more... a lot more. But hey, enough of my yakkin'; whaddaya say? Let's boogie!

David St. Hubbins

 * 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.


 * Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation.


 * [Asked by a reporter if this is the end of Spinal Tap] Well, I don't really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you.

Nigel Tufnel

 * There's something about this that's so black, it's like how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.


 * You can't really dust for vomit.

Derek Smalls

 * We're very lucky in the band in that we have two visionaries, David and Nigel, they're like poets, like Shelley and Byron. They're two distinct types of visionaries, it's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.

Ian Faith

 * Whenever a single bump or a ruffle comes into this little fantasy, adolescent fantasy world that you guys, you guys have built around yourselves, you start screaming like a bunch of pansy hairdressers.


 * For one thing that goes wrong, a hundred things go right. Do you know what I spend my time doing?  I sleep two or three hours a night. There's no sex and drugs for Ian, David. Do you know what I do? I find lost luggage. I locate mandolin strings in the middle of Austin. I prise the rent out of the local Hebrews. That's what I do.


 * Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful.

Terry Ladd

 * Yeah, listen, we'd love to stand around and chat, but we've gotta... sit down in the lobby and wait for the limo.

Lt. Hookstratten

 * May I start by saying how thrilled we are to have you here. We are such fans of your music and all of your records. I'm not speaking of yours personally, but the whole genre of the rock and roll.

Dialogue

 * [When asked what happened to their first drummer]
 * David St. Hubbins: He died in a bizarre gardening accident...
 * Nigel Tufnel: Authorities said... best leave it... unsolved.


 * Marty DiBergi: Let's talk about your reviews a little bit. Regarding Intravenous Di Milo: "This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within.  The musical growth rate of this band cannot even be charted.  They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry."
 * Nigel Tufnel: That's...that's just nitpicking, isn't it?


 * Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to 11. Look, right across the board, 11, 11, 11 and...
 * Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to 10?
 * Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
 * Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
 * Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not 10. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at 10. You're on 10 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on 10 on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
 * Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
 * Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
 * Marty DiBergi: Put it up to 11.
 * Nigel Tufnel: 11. Exactly. One louder.
 * Marty DiBergi: Why don't you make 10 a little louder, make that the top number and make that a little louder?
 * Nigel Tufnel: [pauses] These go to 11.


 * David St. Hubbins: It's such a fine line between stupid, and uh...
 * Nigel Tufnel: Clever.
 * David St. Hubbins: Yeah, and clever.


 * [At Elvis Presley's grave]
 * Nigel Tufnel: It really puts perspective on things though, doesn't it?
 * David St. Hubbins: Too much. There's too much fucking perspective now.


 * [Nigel plays the piano]
 * Marty DiBergi: It's pretty.
 * Nigel Tufnel: Yeah, I like it. I've been fooling around with it for a few months now. Very delicate.
 * Marty DiBergi: It's a bit of a departure from what you normally play.
 * Nigel Tufnel: Yeah, well, it's part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy that I'm doing in D... minor, which I always find is really the saddest of all keys, really, I don't know why. It makes people weep instantly to play  [plays and sings]
 * Nigel Tufnel: It's a horn part.
 * Marty DiBergi: It's very pretty.
 * Nigel Tufnel: You know, just simple lines intertwining, you know, very much like — I'm really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it's sort of in between those, really. It's like a Mach piece, really. It's sort of...
 * Marty DiBergi: What do you call this?
 * Nigel Tufnel: Well, this piece is called "Lick My Love Pump."


 * Marty DiBergi: Now, during the Flower People period, who was your drummer?
 * David St. Hubbins: Stumpy's replacement, Peter James Bond. He also died in mysterious circumstances. We were playing a, uh...
 * Nigel Tufnel: ...Festival.
 * David St. Hubbins: Jazz blues festival. Where was that?
 * Nigel Tufnel: Blues jazz, really.
 * Derek Smalls: Blues jazz festival. Misnamed.
 * Nigel Tufnel: It was in the Isle of, uh...
 * David St. Hubbins: Isle of Lucy. The Isle of Lucy jazz and blues festival.
 * Nigel Tufnel: And, uh, it was tragic, really. He exploded on stage.
 * Derek Smalls: Just like that.
 * David St. Hubbins: He just went up.
 * Nigel Tufnel: He just was like a flash of green light... And that was it. Nothing was left.
 * David St. Hubbins: [about Marty] Look at his face.
 * Nigel Tufnel: Well, there was...
 * David St. Hubbins: It's true, this really did happen.
 * Nigel Tufnel: It's true. There was a little green globule on his drum seat.
 * David St. Hubbins: Like a stain, really.
 * Nigel Tufnel: It was more of a stain than a globule, actually.
 * David St. Hubbins: You know, several, you know, dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported.


 * Marty DiBergi: Do you have any sort of creed or philosophy that you live by?
 * Mick Shrimpton: I used to say "sex, drugs, and rock and roll." As long as there's sex and drugs, I can do without rock and roll.


 * David St. Hubbins: I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.
 * Ian Faith: I really think you're just making much too big a thing out of it.
 * Derek Smalls: Making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea.


 * Ian Faith: Nigel gave me a drawing that said 18 inches. Now, whether or not he knows the difference between feet and inches is not my problem. I do what I'm told.
 * David St. Hubbins: But you're not as confused as him are you? I mean, it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel.


 * Marty DiBergi: Do you feel that playing rock 'n' roll music keeps you a child? That is, keeps you in a state of arrested development?
 * Derek Smalls: No. No. No. I feel it's like, it's more like going, going to a, a national park or something. And there's, you know, they preserve the moose. And that's, that's my childhood up there on stage. That moose, you know.
 * Marty DiBergi: So when you're playing you feel like a preserved moose on stage?
 * Derek Smalls: Yeah.


 * Marty DiBergi: David St. Hubbins... I must admit I've never heard anybody with that name.
 * David St. Hubbins: It's an unusual name. Well, he was an unusual saint.  He's not a very well-known saint.
 * Marty DiBergi: Oh, there actually is, uh... there was a St. Hubbins?
 * David St. Hubbins: That's right, yes.
 * Marty DiBergi: What was he the saint of?
 * David St. Hubbins: He was the patron saint of quality footwear.


 * Marty DiBergi: Do you have any sort of creed or philosophy that you live by?
 * Viv Savage: Have... a good... time... all the time. That's my philosophy, Marty.

Song lyrics

 * My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo. I love to sink her with my pink torpedo! Big bottom, big bottom, Talk about bum-cakes... my girl's got 'em. Big bottom, drive me out of my mind. How can I leave this... behind?
 * Big Bottom
 * The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand.
 * Big Bottom
 * You're sweet but you're just four feet, And you still got your baby teeth. You're too young and I'm too well hung, But tonight I'm gonna rock you.
 * Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight
 * And you my love, won't you take my hand? We'll go back in time, to that mystic land. Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow. I will take you there, I will show you how.
 * Stonehenge

Cast

 * Rob Reiner - Marty DiBergi
 * Christopher Guest - Nigel Tufnel
 * Michael McKean - David St. Hubbins
 * Harry Shearer - Derek Smalls
 * R.J. Parnell - Mick Shrimpton
 * David Kaff - Viv Savage
 * Ed Begley Jr. - John "Stumpy" Pepys
 * Danny Kortchmar - Ronnie Pudding
 * Tony Hendra - Ian Faith
 * June Chadwick - Jeanine Pettibone
 * Bruno Kirby - Tommy Pischedda
 * Fran Drescher - Bobbi Flekman
 * Patrick Macnee - Sir Denis Eton-Hogg
 * Billy Crystal - Morty the Mime
 * Dana Carvey - Mime Waiter
 * Howard Hesseman - Terry Ladd
 * Paul Shaffer - Artie Fufkin
 * Anjelica Huston - Polly Deutsch
 * Fred Willard - Lieutenant Hookstratten