Dip My Brain in Joy: A Life with Neil Innes by Yvonne Innes review – a tender account of a cult hero

When Neil Innes died at the age of 75 in December 2019, the world lost one of its most beloved cult heroes. 

A founding member of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, co-founder of The Rutles and ‘seventh member’ of Monty Python, Innes was an exceptionally talented musician, songwriter and comedian. He was also a genuinely good, kind and humble human being. An admirable soul.

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In the words of Yvonne Innes, his wife for over 50 years and author of this tender account of their life together, Dip My Brain in Joy: “He saw no point in being difficult or unkind. He believed we are all equal.”

John Cleese once said that Neil Innes was too nice for his own good, a condescending appraisal of someone who – as Yvonne stresses throughout – was hardly a hapless pushover. Innes had self-respect, he was confident in his abilities as an artist, but he didn’t feel any need to shout about it.

Innes loved life, he loved making music and performing for people. That’s all he ever wanted to do.

So it’s hugely dispiriting whenever the pettiness and greed of others intrude upon this life-affirming story. The incredible songs Innes wrote for the Rutles project – that classic Beatles spoof he created alongside Eric Idle – are a masterclass in musical pastiche.

They sounded like The Beatles without explicitly copying them, but that didn’t stop catalogue owners ATV from demanding that he share his royalties with Lennon and McCartney.

That hurt Innes deeply, but he was even more crushed when Idle – who had no involvement in The Rutles’ music – threatened an injunction against his old friend when he recorded a second Rutles album in the mid-1990s. Idle claimed he owned the Rutles name, so Innes had to pay for the licence with his own money. 

This isn’t a bitter book by any means – on the contrary, it’s full of love and brain-dipped joy – but Yvonne’s disappointment is palpable during those saddening chapters.

Neil Innes was a man of quiet integrity who found himself working within an industry that values profit over anything else, but the people who matter loved and respected him. That makes him a winner in my book.

Dip My Brain in Joy: A Life with Neil Innes by Yvonne Innes, is out now (Nine Eight Books, £22). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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