{"id":28871,"date":"2025-02-16T05:30:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T10:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28871"},"modified":"2024-12-23T14:08:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T19:08:46","slug":"five-classics-from-neil-innes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/five-classics-from-neil-innes\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Classics from Neil Innes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Innes was a superb and witty songwriter. Much of his work came to the public\u2019s attention thanks to his close friendship with the Beatles, but Innes\u2019 work stands on its own as well. The Danbury, England native passed away in 2019; last December 9 was the 80th anniversary of his birth. In honor of Neil Innes, here are six classics written or co-written by him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cDeath Cab for Cutie\u201d from <em>Gorilla<\/em> by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nNot long after the death of manager Brian Epstein, the Beatles began work on their third motion picture. The successor to <em>A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/em> and <em>Help!<\/em> was a decidedly more modest affair, often tagged as a \u201cglorified home movie.\u201d But <em>Magical Mystery Tour<\/em> wasn\u2019t without its charms: it\u2019s a surreal and wacky film with a mischievous spirit and some great music. And not all of that music was from the Beatles: pals the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were featured in the nightclub scene, with lead vocalist Vivian Stanshall warbling the deeply bizarre \u201cDeath Cab for Cutie,\u201d a song co-written with band mate Neil Innes. (And yes, that\u2019s where the Pacific Northwest indie band got its name.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qKXsrWrmbAg?si=ExIEWtpXW0EK1X_Q\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cI\u2019m the Urban Spaceman\u201d by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (single, 1968)<\/strong><br \/>\nThe Beatles connections continued even after the making of <em>Magical Mystery Tour<\/em>. In 1968 the Bonzos released their second album, the weirdly wonderful <em>The Doughnut in Granny\u2019s Greenhouse<\/em>. The album full of reliably bizarre tunes composed by Stanshall and Innes was a critical success, if a modest seller. When prepared for U.S. release, the album added a single, \u201cI\u2019m the Urban Spaceman,\u201d renaming the disc after it. While most of the album was produced by Gus Dudgeon (later to work extensively with Elton John) and Gerry Bron, the single was a co-production by Dudgeon and Apollo C. Vermouth, the latter a pseudonym of one James Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/olGXtohOs7c?si=tDlG6FM3eBKJYDbv\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cHow Sweet to Be an Idiot\u201d from <em>How Sweet to be an Idiot<\/em> (1973)<\/strong><br \/>\nBy the early \u201870s, Innes had gone solo, often working with a backing group called GRIMMS. His debut album was named after its featured single, \u201cHow Sweet to Be an Idiot.\u201d More than two decades after the song\u2019s release, Britpop band Oasis used the tune\u2019s melody for their own \u201coriginal\u201d song, \u201cWhatever.\u201d Claiming plagiarism, Innes sued and won. And while Neil Innes was never a member of Monty Python, he had provided music for many of their projects, so when he performed as part of the ensemble in 1982\u2019s <em>Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl<\/em>, Innes sang \u201cHow Sweet to Be an Idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/weu6RozXb78?si=Lu9jiyziZs2ZcKj6\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cI Must Be in Love\u201d from <em>The Rutles<\/em> soundtrack by the Rutles (1978)<\/strong><br \/>\nOnce again turning his attention to the Beatles, Innes wrote and recorded \u201cI Must Be in Love\u201d for a comedy sketch broadcast on an episode of the BBC comedy <em>Rutland Weekend Television<\/em>. That song gave birth to a larger project, the TV special <em>All You Need is Cash<\/em>. A Pythonesque retelling of the Beatles\u2019 story, the program boasted the support and participation of George Harrison. \u201cI Must Be in Love\u201d is but one of many Rutles spot-on pastiches of the Beatles that enliven the production.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BCnXo1LKY1g?si=w5l4wBAvZaAHMxG-\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cShangri-La\u201d from <em>Archaeology<\/em> by the Rutles (1996)<\/strong><br \/>\nSome quarter-century after breaking up, the Beatles finally got around to completing the documentary series conceived in 1969 as <em>The Long and Winding Road<\/em>. Six CDs\u2019 worth of previously unheard material was released in conjunction with their <em>Anthology<\/em> project. So it was natural enough that the Rutles embarked upon an archival project of their own, and <em>Archaeology<\/em> was the result. The new release featured more songs that gently poked at the Beatles\u2019 legacy while reminding listeners of what made those songs special. Innes\u2019 \u201cShangri-La\u201d is a standout tune on the album.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sc2IEWZjeGU?si=VEIXDVA4NTGhXhHW\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Innes was a superb and witty songwriter. Much of his work came to the public\u2019s attention thanks to his close friendship with the Beatles, but Innes\u2019 work stands on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5606],"class_list":["post-28871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-neil-innes","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28873,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28871\/revisions\/28873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}