Does anyone remember...

[_19disnA]

I have no idea what the words to the theme song are. Just seemed like a catchy tune. A lot of the music from that era could be interpreted in many ways. I honestly don't know the words to most of those songs.

 

[georgina]

Long post, sorry! But I found this very interesting

Early in his career, Robert Altman had a reputation for being difficult. When he was still directing TV shows like Maverick and Bonanza, he’d been fired several times over “creative differences” with his bosses. He was recognized as talented, but his rancorous nature slowed his work to a trickle. Finally in 1969, after nearly two decades of struggling, he got a big break. He was offered the opportunity to direct a film version of MASH, Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel about three doctors’ misadventures in a mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) during the Korean War. Altman wasn’t the studio’s first choice. In fact, he wasn’t even their tenth choice. More than a dozen other directors had rejected the project, and with good reason: at a time when the war in Vietnam was a very controversial topic, MASH’s mix of crude hijinks and badly injured soldiers had the smell of a box-office disaster. But Altman didn’t have a lot to lose, so he took the job.

Analyzing the script, Altman was aware that he was walking a tightrope between slapstick and tragedy. But if he could craft a scene that successfully combined both, he felt that he could probably figure out the rest of the movie. He settled on a scene he nicknamed “The Last Supper,” in which Captain Walter “Painless Pole” Waldowski decides to kill himself after an embarrassing failure in the bedroom, and in response, his friends wine and dine with him in a pre-death “wake” in which his seat of honor is a casket.

Altman quickly saw that the absurdity of the scene wasn’t quite working as written. It needed a song— solemn… but so bad that it was funny. Altman called on a friend— composer Johnny Mandel, who’d recently won an Oscar for his song “The Shadow of Your Smile” from the movie The Sandpipers. Mandel accepted the job, but not without some trepidation. The last film he’d done with Altman (That Cold Day in the Park) had been an embarrassing flop, and he knew that, in Hollywood, another flop could do serious damage to his career.
Although a movie score is usually handled in postproduction, after filming and editing, Altman asked Mandel to be present during the planning of “The Last Supper.” That’s when he asked Mandel to write a song for actor Ken Prymus to sing while playing the guitar. Altman’s two stipulations: the song had to be called “Suicide Is Painless,” and it had to be “the stupidest song ever written.”

Altman may have sensed Mandel’s lack of enthusiasm in aspiring to stupidity. He told Mandel to stick with the music and forget about the lyrics— Altman would write them himself. Easier said than done. Altman discovered that stupidity wasn’t as simple as it looks. “I can’t write anything nearly as stupid as what we need,” he reported after a few days of trying. But he had a trump card: his 14-year-old son, Michael. Whether Mike should’ve been flattered or insulted, his father was confident that he had within him “the stupidest song ever,” and Mike didn’t disappoint. He came through with lines like “The sword of time will pierce our skins / The pain grows stronger, watch it grin,” and Altman declared them perfect. Award-winning songwriter Mandel wasn’t so sure. In fact, he was mortified when Altman decided to use the song for the movie’s title song as well. Mandel couldn’t see how the “stupid song,” performed in an easy-listening style, fit the scenes of helicopters, stretchers, carnage, and patients in pain. But somehow it did.

https://www.neatorama.com/2015/07/28/MASH-Notes-The-Story-Behind-Suicide-is-Painless/

Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see

That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say

Suicide is painless (suicide)
It brings on many changes (changes)
And I can take or leave it if I please

The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger
Watch it grin

Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

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?

Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please

 

[fla4fun]

I liked it but it did seem to get more preachy after Mike Farrell came on.

The whole show shifted from a comedy to a dramedy when they lost the characters of Henry, Trapper, and Frank. Their replacements, Charles, B.J., and Colonel Potter were more serious in tone. There were still some comedic moments, but the show overall didn’t feel like a comedy anymore. I prefer the earlier shows myself.