New Rutles Rumor: Dirk Is Deaf
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My friend heard a disc jockey on his favorite Detroit radio station talking about how a new rumor is going around that Dirk is deaf, and has been increasingly hard of hearing for many years.
It seems they say that Dirk was in an automobile accident with an Ice Cream truck, hit his head, and this is when his hearing was damaged. Because of his lack of hearing, the radio went on to say that sometime maybe as early as late 1966, Dirk had been replaced in the studio by a Dirk sound-alike. Even more important, even though the Rutles have kept this deception secret from their fans, they have been hiding clues about it on the album covers and in song lyrics all these years.
Indeed, there is a small picture of what appears to be the other three Rutles reacting to seeing Dirk's accident inside the booklet of the new Archaeology album. This was the first clue fans noticed, and many more clues were quickly discovered.
The Clues
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The first thing I did when I heard these rumors was to immediately go to my record shelf and look at my copy of A Hard Day's Rut.
Sure enough, there it was just like my friend said they said on the radio. Right on the album cover, there was a picture of Dirk holding his finger to his ear, third row down, fourth picture from the left, in a pose obviously self-conscious about his hearing loss.
There are also several clues on the cover of the Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band album.
Someone is holding a hand, palm out, over Dirk's head, which is the symbol for "hello" in the sign language used by the deaf, a language which Dirk must have been learning at the time in order to communicate with others.
In addition, all the Rutles except
Dirk are holding horns (Dirk is holding a clarinet). Dirk would naturally
avoid holding a horn, as this would resemble the old type of horn the deaf
used to put up to their ears as a crude hearing aid.
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And, on the cover of the Shabby Road album, Dirk is crossing the road barefooted. He would obviously had not done this had he been able to hear people warning him that the asphalt would be hot and it would burn his feet.
SONG LYRICS:
There are clues in the lyrics of Rutles Songs, too!
In the last verse of Get Up And Go on the Let It Rot album/movie/law suit, Dirk sings:
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Cruising down the highway doing sixty-five in the middle of the double white line His foot down on the gas and his head in the clouds He didn't see the one-way sign |
These lines obviously refer to the events leading up to the auto
accident in which Dirk lost his hearing.
Further, in the song Doubleback Alley, who's title includes the
word "Double" (as in Dirk and his performing stand-in), the singer sings of
a warning to:
steer you clearAccording to the rumors, it was an Ice Cream Van that Dirk didn't see and ran into while "his head was in the clouds".
of the funny man
in the ice cream van...
And in the song Easy Listening on the new Archaeology
album, a song title which suggests that it's still easy for the three remaining
Rutles to listen, but not Dirk, Barry sings:
Why don't we do it theThis repeats the same description of Dirk's reckless driving as in Get Up And Go which lead to the crash.
middle of the road?
In addition, in another picture in the Archaeology booklet, there is a picture of a car like the one Dirk was driving at the time of the accident.
Finally, on the Archaeology song Unfinished Words, Nasty says (instead of singing, as if to highlight the clue):
I can't pretend to beThe "someone who pretends to be someone else" obviously refers to Dirk's sound-alike, who's been filling in for Dirk since his hearing loss, and the "pretend friend" Nasty is talking about is obviously Dirk, who has only been pretending to sing and play all these years.
someone who pretends to be
someone else
Or so my pretend friend tells me
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DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE:
In many photographs and live concert footage, Dirk can be seen "playing" the guitar. If these photographs are examined closely, you can clearly see that Dirk is only faking playing, and is not fingering the guitar at all. The picture at the left is one of many examples, this one from the Rutles Let It Rot rooftop concert.
In addition, in All You Need Is Cash, the official Rutles documentary, Dirk can be seen and heard trying to play the piano and compose a new song for his new wife Martini on their honeymoon. From the footage you can see and hear clearly that Dirk can no longer seem to find the correct notes on the piano or sing on key because of his advanced hearing loss. The fact that this footage was released shows that the Rutles were finally getting tired of hiding the fact of Dirk's deafness at this late point in their career, nearing their breakup.
How All The Pieces Fit
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| Leppo In Hamburg, 1960 |
The only answer is that Leppo was only a stage name for Ollie Hallsal. It says right in the liner notes for Archaeology that Ollie Hallsal is on three Archaeology tracks, and he died in 1992. Ollie (Leppo) must have been Dirk's recording stand-in in the later years. Of course Dirk couldn't be on the new Archaeology, as his stand-in is no longer around!
Is Dirk really deaf?
Dirk McQuickly officially has no comment on the
subject. Although many clues point to this fact, I'm afraid we'll probably
never know for sure. However, we have uncovered one final weird clue.
In their early days, we know that one of the clubs the Rutles played in Hamburg, later featured very prominently in the All You Need Is Cash documentary, was called "Der Rat Keller". You might recall that Helen Keller was the name of a famous deaf woman. Coincidence? I wonder...
This page last updated December 1, 1996.