Stonehenge by Spinal Tap

Album: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

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Spinal Tap lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel wrote this song after eating a bad dish of Indian food.
Stonehenge is a group of mysterious standing stones on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. Historians believe Stonehenge was constructed around 1500 B.C. and was used for either religious ceremonies or astronomy.
A notable disaster occurred on Spinal Tap's 1982 tour when this song was performed using an 18-inch Stonehenge monument as a backdrop instead of an 18-foot one. The plans, which Tufnel drew up on a napkin, said 18" rather than 18', so that is what they got. The tiny monument was stomped on by dwarves hired to dance around it.
The band once accused Black Sabbath of stealing their Stonehenge idea for Sabbath's live show. On their 1983-1984 tour, Sabbath commissioned a life-size model of Stonehenge for the stage. Their tour manager drew out the dimensions in feet, but the company that built it assumed it was in meters, so everything was about three times a big as it should have been, resulting in unwieldy fake rocks that barely fit in the venues. As part of the show, a dwarf would crawl across the stones and roadies would appear dressed as druids.
Spinal Tap was the creation of director Rob Reiner and the actor/comedians Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, who played the band members. Harry Shearer tells Songfacts that it was a very collaborative project, with the four of them writing all the songs for the movie. Shearer says he loves "Stonehenge" because it's "musically the silliest song."
In 2025 Elton John joined Spinal Tap for a performance of "Stonehenge" at their reunion concert that features on their album The End Continues and is used in the movie Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.

Comments: 9

Dan Gillespy from Courtenay BcSpinal Tap always has had interesting rocking songs and Stonehenge is one of those songs.
Dan from Sheridan, WyThe Set is *not* stomped on by the dwarves. It is NEARLY stomped on, prompting the discussion of whether thy should keep using the prop.
Brian from New York, Nyin spinal tap 2 they yell to their crowd: "If you could travel back to any ancient time period ever, when would it be?" and they all yell back "STONEHENGE!"
Brian from Fullerton (the Paris Of Oc), CaFavorite Spinal Tap dialogue:
"No, you don't push the wind away, the wind comes at you. Ok change those, get the little dwarf canolies. Come on, don't talk back, mime is money, come on, move it"

"Can I ask a practical question at this point? Are we gonna do Stonehenge tomorrow night?"

"We've got Armadillos in our trousers. It's really quite frightening"

"Do me a favor. Just kick my ass, okay? Kick this ass for a man, that's all. Kick my ass. Enjoy. Come on. I'm not asking, I'm telling with this. Kick my ass."
Martijn from Helmond, NetherlandsTom Waits (an extraordinary songwriter who for some reason is not featured on ths site) recently said he had to cry when watching this movie because it was so true. His wife kept telling him it was funny, but he thought it sad.
Luke from Manchester, England1. The film has them with the small stonehenge,

2. It's based upon Black Sabbath's story of getting replica stones made for a tour only to have them so big they couldn't fit in any of the arenas they were playing... The Tap's version makes the stones too small.

3. Derek Smalls gets trapped in a cocoon, not a stone
Daryl from Stoke, EnglandHaha, one of my favourite scenes is where Derek is trapped in the big blue block onstage...The when he finally gets out the others go back in theirs and it closes haha great stuff!
Steph from Melbourne, Australiayeh, i agreed with erika from Melbourne. That 1 with the jeans lol. Best Comedy film eva. Great scene! great movie!
Erika from Melbourne, Australiayou gotta love that bit of the movie! great movie!

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