Goodbye to Neil Innes

Another hero of mine who has always been there is gone. Neil Innes died at his home in France yesterday.

As the New York Times says:

Mr. Innes, a multi-instrumentalist, was a particular type of songwriter: one who excelled at satirical songs and parodies of other people’s music but who could also write a pretty good straight song. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. 

In the early 1960s he was one of the first members of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, also known as simply the Bonzo Dog Band. He wrote its biggest hit, “I’m the Urban Spaceman,” which climbed into the Top 10 on the British charts in 1968. 

In the 1970s he wrote material for Monty Python, the six-member comedy troupe. Midway through that decade he and Eric Idle, a Python, came up with the Rutles, a deadpan parody of the Beatles; the group not only recorded albums but made films, including the mock documentary “The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash” in 1978.

His "I've suffered for my music and now it's your turn" here has entered the language.