Neil Innes has died, aged 75. This has made me feel indescribably sad. Far more so than I would have thought. After all, he was 75. He had a good innings. Marvellous career. Loving family. I realise my sadness is for myself and for the rest of us. Left behind in a world without Neil Innes in it. Neil was a reminder of a kinder time, a merrier England. A sublime melodist, gentle humorist, the man who translated Vivian Stanshall’s insane genius into something approaching pop music, the man who wrote all those songs for the Rutles – the greatest ever Beatles pastiche. A grammar school kid like the ones that went before me and my kind. Art school. A refugee from a time when playing a bit of piano and bashing a bit of guitar in a pub with a bunch of Art school piss artists could lead to albums, hit records, American tours, film appearances with the Beatles, honorary Monty Python status… And through it all Neil retained his self-effacing diffidence. After all, it was nothing special really, was it? Anyone could write a few songs, sing a bit, have a bit of a laugh. Couldn’t they?
Actually, no. Neil Innes’s talent was as remarkable as any of his contemporaries in the 60s and 70s. And as unique. He may have devoted much of it to parody and pastiche but when he wrote in his own voice – “Ready Mades”, “Summer Walks And Summer Talks”, for example – it was as true and as utterly English as Ray Davies or Kevin Ayers – to name but two. Overshadowed in the Bonzos by Stanshall’s inspired lunacy and Roger Ruskin Spear’s (literal) explosions, Neil seemed content to play the straight man. But what would they have been without him? Without him to steer them through the zany antics and dada-ist routines into fame of a sort via their one hit record (“I’m The Urban Spaceman”) and to pepper their records with tunes and lovely music.
I met him a couple of times. As a totally starstruck 15 year old I told him he was wonderful. “I know”, he smiled. End of conversation. Fast forward 30 years or so and I’m ligging in the green room at the Albert Hall at a Bootleg Beatles show where my friends are performing. Neil and I are at the bar. “Wouldn’t it be funny”, I said, all hail-fellow well-met, “if they were to do a Rutles song?” Neil looked appalled. “Absolutely not,” he said. “It would be completely inappropriate.” I realised I had stepped over an invisible line in the sand. I shuffled away.
Earlier this year I went to see a version of The Rutles play a show at The Garage in London. I stood at the front because I wanted to watch Neil’s guitar playing. I love that style of playing. Nick Lowe has it too. It’s a way of playing that is completely economical, without a trace of show-off. Every chord is beautifully in its place. No solos. Not ever. No-one plays like that now. It’s also a particularly English way of playing, from a time when good guitars were hard to come by and you had to make do with cheap Hofners and Futuramas, when a Watkins Rapier was the Les Paul of Harlesden High Street. You had to hold the chords down properly and bar chords would just give you cramp.
Anyway… Neil Innes is gone. We are left in a Britain that gives a knighthood to a cruel, heartless politician but fails to recognise Neil Innes. We are poorer. We are poorer. Thank you, Neil. Thank you for everything.