The best musicians are like the best lovers. They turn you all of a fever in the early days of encounters. You can’t get enough of them. You pore over every detail and treasure them close. You find the things you love most about them and revel in delight. It all happens so fast, you’re giddy, and before you know it you are fixated. You want to tell the whole world, you think the whole world is missing out on these charms. There comes a period where things perhaps start to wane to some extent, but they’re still held dear and you can’t be pulled away to focus elsewhere. You’ve discovered everything about them and can see the odd flaw, but you overlook any of that, as you’re on intimate terms – here is someone that conveys yourself to you, makes you feel good about yourself, and you’re deeply entwined. Years pass by, and you can look back with nostalgia on specific, fond memories – some will be with you forever, and you will always have associations strong, good, bad, extreme – they are an undeniable part of who you are and will affect the way you think about life for some time if not for ever. All future lovers/musicians will always be judged by the most cherished aspects.
Perhaps it is the singer-songwriter with whom you can experience all these things to the highest. An individual who is emotive, expressive, comforting; whose music feels personable, direct.
I regard Robyn Hitchcock as one of the finest English songwriters of all-time. He has it nailed to the last – fine melody, detailed and often curious lyrics, off-beat humour, a literary sense at one moment and an off-hand notion about truckles of cheese or of living in the trees, the next. He can be tenderly singing an aching ballad that involves a reference to Cambridge police station, or he can be found questioning the usefulness of shaving cream, or putting in an onstage request for “lady petrol” (Rosé wine to me and you) the next. He strums stripped back acoustic pleasantry with playful lyrics, rocks pyschedelic. He has made albums with members of REM. He captures your imagination the way the most interesting and intriguing artists do – he has song titles such as Dancing on God’s Thumb, Flesh Nunber One (Beatle Dennis), No, I Don’t Remember Guildford, Statue with a Walkman On, Tell me About Your Drugs, Do Policemen Sing?, That’s Fantastic Mother Church. His best album titles go by names like, Gotta Let This Hen Out, Olé Tarantula, Groovy Decay, and Fegmania!. He sketches and paints quirky cartoons and imagery and includes many in his albums. He prints or releases audio versions of zany short stories about characters called Prawn and Happy The Golden Prince.
These paragraphs only begin to give a slight overview of Robyn Hitchcock. He’s released a huge cannon of work – both with The Soft Boys who aggravated punks with their quirky, literate, off-kilter rock in the 70s, with The Egyptians in the 80s, with The Venus Three in later years, and first and foremost as an incredibly prolific, rich solo artist.
Perhaps I should write a little about what I consider to be his best song. 1974 really hits the mark and resounds to this day with its Feels like 1974 / You could vote for Labour / But you can’t anymore refrain. It’s a heady whirl through an impression of time, giving real insight and detail to the last. Descriptive notes of time and place scatter the song and make it incredibly characterful. Mentions of the Archway Road, Syd Barrett’s last session, ghastly mellow saxophones, and Digging Led Zepein in Grimsby. It’s all cast onto a rousing acoustic frame, with Robyn’s gruff but tender talking-singing. It’s a definitive moment in what is a heavyweight back catalogue that really deserves so much more attention and adoration.
Robyn Hitchcock has been chosen by Neutral Milk Hotel‘s Jeff Magnum to play I Often Dream of Trains, Robyn’s third album that will be 28 years old in 2012, at All Tomorrow’s Parties next year. Robyn also plays the album Eye at St Leonard’s Church in Shoreditch this evening (November 26th), with orchestral backing.
www.robynhitchcock.com/
http://shoreditchchurch.wordpress.com/
