“What a drag it is getting old.” — Mick Jagger, 1966, “Mother’s Little Helper”
They’re dropping like flies. Nearly all of my heroes on vinyl from more than half a century ago are dying off. It really does suck to be getting old enough for heroes to pass on.
In my heyday, my collegiate years, my musical and entertainment heroes were Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; Keith Emerson, organist with The Nice and Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Tuli Kupferberg with the Fugs; Peter Bergman and Phillip Austin with the Firesign Theatre, and the dynamic duo of Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes with the Bonzo Dog Band.
All of the aforementioned are gone now. Many were not household names, but they were by no means short on talent.
Neil Innes was the latest to go, on Saturday, Dec. 28. He was well remembered for his appearances in Monty Python movies, such as the minstrel in “The Holy Grail” and he had a hand in “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” the last tune in “Life of Brian.”
Innes wrote the song “Death Cab for Cutie,” which was performed in the Beatles movie “Magical Mystery Tour” and later inspired today’s band with the same name.
He also teamed up with Python Eric Idle to form the Rutles in a mockumentary that of a band that suspiciously looked and sounded like the Beatles for a 1977 film “All You Need Is Cash.” He was a guest on Saturday Night Live with Idle.
He even had his own TV show on the BBC, “The Innes Book of Records.”
A group of friends (yes, I used to have friends) and I in 2004 took in a show Innes did solo at the Intersection in Grand Rapids. It was not well publicized and only a couple dozen people showed up to listen and laugh.
Innes gave a fascinating presentation about how he was friends with Paul McCartney and George Harrison and they really enjoyed the Rutles. Harrison even made a cameo appearance in “All You Need Is Cash,” as did John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner and other SNL stalwarts.
The Bonzo Dog Band was the only other band besides the Beatles to appear in a Beatles movie.
Because the crowd was small at the Grand Rapids concert, Innes consented to chatting with us. He recognized that his fan numbers were small, but they were rabid.
John Cleese. Of Monty Python fame, tweeted that Innes was too kind for his own good. That was our impression as well.
Innes and Stanshall formed a talented songwriting team that in its own way challenged Lennon and McCartney.
Perhaps the most unusual song he penned was “Randy Raquel.” About a man’s love for his blow-up sex doll in 1976:
“Randy Raquel, I think you’re swell, my sweet inflatable you.
“You never say no, or come and go, you’re always faithful and true.”
There aren’t many heroes left for me, perhaps two members of the Firesign Theatre, Ed Sanders of the Fugs, a handful of former Mothers of Invention, and Roger Ruskin Spear, Legs Larry Smith and Rodney Slater of the Bonzos.
Nobody here gets out alive.
Nice piece, David. A bittersweet sendoff for 2019.
I’ve been watching the obligatory “Hail and Farewell” (NBC’s year end tribute to those who have passed on during the past year) type pieces, and am having the same bittersweet feelings about the dying of people I’ve admired and respected, or those whose entertainment brought me joy during my life.
It’s times like these when I feel both awe and despair about the human condition.
How can there exist such high artistic achievements and such admirable social and political advances, only to have it all end in worm food?
If there is a mindful creator of we mere mortals, that creator has an ironic sense of cruelty placing a spark of life into beings that are so transient and flawed, so capable of the greatest accomplishments and the most depraved unkindnesses.
Happy New Year?