I'm the Urban Spaceman

I’d like to go on record as saying that the record would have been nothing like [as successful] without Paul’s touch

Neil Innes – Member of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – From “Fab: intimate life of Paul McCartney” by Howard Sounes, 2010

When Neil wrote it, I didn’t particularly see much in it. We got the demos down when we were staying in a cottage in Devon – this sounds nice and Trafficy. […] We played it a hell of a lot and I got to quite like it. It’s a nice happy song, I can see that it looks frightfully contrived and commercial. Does it? I know it’s not satirical or highly pointed.

Vivian Stanshall – Leader of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band – From New Musical Express, December 7, 1968

Viv [Stanshall] was down the Speakeasy with Paul. I think they used to drop into the personas of country gents, sort of thing, “Another one, dear boy?” “I don’t mind if I do”. Viv was saying, “We’ve got to do this bloody single, but the producer won’t give us time to do anything.” So Paul said, “Well, I’ll come and produce it.”

Neil Innes – Member of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – From “Fab: intimate life of Paul McCartney” by Howard Sounes, 2010

So Viv was down the Speakeasy Club, I think, with Paul, talking generally, he used to hang out quite a bit.  And Viv was complaining about the fact that Gerry [Bron – the producer of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band] was sort of, “Right, three hours of that, move on.”  And he said, now we gotta go in and record this bloody single.  So Paul said, “I’ll come and produce it if you like.”  And that was perfect, because that was the only way we were going to get him off the control desk, to have somebody like Paul, who wasn’t known as a record producer, but he was known.  So he came and produced that, and took eight hours.

Neil Innes – From Bonzo Dog Band- Neil Innes interview by Richie Unterberger, January 2001

Larry was sort of doing on the drums a-boom-chick, boom-chick, boomchick, and Paul said, ‘Yeah, that’s all right, we’ll do it like that, but give it a boom-dat-boom boom bap with the boom-chick, boom-chick,’ which gave it a feel. Then he snatches up Viv’s ukulele and starts leaning into the microphone, Nashville-style, to fade it, live fade and fade out, rinky-dinky-dinky-dinky-dinky-dink, and the whole thing is taking off. And it’s totally down to Paul.

Neil Innes – Member of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band – From “Fab: intimate life of Paul McCartney” by Howard Sounes, 2010

I loved the Bonzos: I’d been to see their show and they’d been in Magical Mystery Tour, in the strip scene at Raymond’s Revuebar. Viv Stanshall used to go to the clubs a lot, like I did, and we’d often meet all the guys late-night, chatting over a drink. He said that they really needed a single to establish them and I said, “Well what have you got? I’ve seen your act and you haven’t really got singles there.” Viv then asked if I’d produce them and I said “Yes, if you get something together.” So they sent a demo and I showed up at Chappell Studios one afternoon, talked to the engineer and got them a good sound, a bit of compression, a bit of this and that, and produced it. Within two or three hours they’d cut the track, ‘I’m The Urban Spaceman’, which turned out to be their only hit. I said “Just put me down as anything” and Viv made up the name Apollo C Vermouth. A lot of people still don’t know that I produced that track – they say “What – you produced the Bonzos? Never!” And it was fun session. I still like Viv a lot, and I loved the radio show he did.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Club Sandwich, Spring 1992

I originally met Viv in the London club days, out and about on the town. We used to have drinks and a laugh together and he was a lovely, funny man. He was in The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, which I saw live on stage at the Saville Theatre a couple of times when Brian Epstein promoted shows there. They were very eccentric — sort of modern yet very old-fashioned — following on from bands like the Temperance Seven. Then I phoned Viv and asked if the Bonzos would be in Magical Mystery Tour with us. They did the scene with the stripper that we filmed in Paul Raymond’s Revuebar and I think they had a pretty good time, playing while the woman took off her clothes. So Viv became a very good friend and I used to visit him at his house — I remember that he had an aquarium with turtles, at which we used to sit and wonder! Then he asked me to produce their next single ‘I’m The Urban Spaceman’, which I did at Chappell Studios. I went down there, met the guys, and Viv had a length of brightly-coloured plastic piping which made a noise when he swirled it around his head. That was to be his contribution. We chatted a while and then I produced the record. He suggested that I be credited as “Apollo C Vermouth”, which indeed I am, still, to this day. It turned out to be the Bonzos only hit, although hit singles is not what they were about anyway. I’ll always remember Viv and Keith Moon being a sort of double act, the two of them playing very, very posh English gentleman. They did have their crazy side, of course, but whenever I saw them together they were perfect gentlemen. They did a joint Radio 1 show, which I heard while driving up to Scotland and was the inspiration for Oobu Joobu. Over the following years Viv and I would see each other, on and off, at functions, but I gradually lost touch with him, so it was with particular sadness that I heard he had died. He was a wonderful man and he’ll be much missed.

Paul McCartney, 1995

Officially appears on

Live performances

Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.

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