A great song parody

Another little YouTube treat I've just dug up (prompted by dear old Tolstoy over on Webside Gleanings who recently posted a classic clip of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band): this is Neil Innes - the brilliant musician who created the Bonzos with the crackpot Viv Stanshall, and later went on to perform in the later series of Monty Python, and then to create the great Beatles spoof band The Rutles - here doing a spot-on parody of the meaningless clichés and facile rhymes of most Elton John/Bernie Taupin songs. This is the original performance of the song from the short-lived mid-70s BBC2 skit show Rutland Weekend Television (Eric Idle's first post-Python project). I rather prefer the later rendition from Neil's own show, The Innes Book Of Records, performed in the persona of his slightly creepy nightclub MC 'Nick Cabaret' - but there doesn't seem to be a full version of that available on YouTube. This one's OK, though; and the costume - spoofing Elton's get-up in Tommy - is pretty funny in itself.

The Innes Book Of Records was one of the great delights of my childhood: 30 minutes of brilliant musical pastiches accompanied by the most surreal videos (Does anyone else remember Neil in a kilt, dancing a highland jig over two crossed swordfish on the floor of a cave beside the sea?? I can't just have imagined that, can I??). I think only two series of 6 episodes each were made, in the mid or late 70s; as far as I know, they have never been repeated on the Beeb (although they have shown up a few times on cable channels such as UK Gold, which is where most of the handful of YouTube clips from it appear to have been sourced); and Innes is apparently now mired in a bitter fight over the rights to the programmes, a legal tussle which may prevent them being released on DVD for years yet. Very sad. Somewhere in my old vinyl record collection (I hope they're still safe, Lizzie?), I have three albums of these songs. I really should try to get that stuff shipped over here.

But I digress. Here is Neil singing Godfrey Daniel (the title is an oath favoured by W.C. Fields). I'll transcribe the lyrics in a comment - a masterpiece of meaninglessness!

If you liked that, here's another little gem from Book Of Records, the punk spoof Paranoia.