Bruces' Philosophers Song (Bruces' Song)

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Bruces' Philosophers Song (Bruces' Song) was a popular Monty Python song, a feature of the group's stage appearances as well as of its recordings, and ostensibly rendered by a number of Australian university lecturers. They were all called Bruce and taught at the University of Woolloomooloo. (Woolloomooloo is an inner suburb of Sydney. There is actually no university there, though the real-life Sydney University is not far away.) Although the Bruces sketch previously appeared in the TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus, the song itself was original to the stage show.

The song's lyrics make a series of scurrilous allegations against a number of highly respected philosophers, usually with regard to their capacity or incapacity for imbibing intoxicating liquors.

For a long time, opinion has been divided as to whether the sixth line is "Both Schopenhauer and Hegel" or just "Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel", or whether it was Eric Hoffer or Thomas Hobbes who is described as being fond of his dram. However, the publication of the lyrics with the release of Monty Python Sings clarifies this to Hegel and Hobbes respectively as the "official" lyrics. The reason for the confusion was that early versions of the song played live (included in the Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl film and on the albums Live at Drury Lane and Live at City Center) had the "Schopenhauer and Hegel" version (if not the Hoffer line as well).

The song is commonly used as a drinking song among Australian University students and also rugby players.

Save for Hoffer (if indeed he, rather than Hobbes, is being cited), all the thinkers whom the song mentions were dead by the time it appeared, with one conspicuous exception. Since Heidegger - credited in the lyrics with the same prodigious alcohol intake ascribed to Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant ("a real piss-ant"), Wittgenstein, et al - lived until 1976, the intriguing possibility remains that he might have learnt of the ditty's existence, and thus of his own unexpected immortality as a comedic icon.

Philosophers mentioned in the song (In order):