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<\/p>\nBorn in London and a longtime resident of Nashville, singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock enjoys an influential and critically-acclaimed career. With his late \u201870s band the Soft Boys, Hitchcock channeled \u201860s psychedelia and a beat poetry aesthetic into a punk and post-punk framework. As a solo artist and with backing bands the Egyptians and the Venus 3, Hitchcock has continued his musical odyssey through a world filled with wonder and wordplay.<\/p>\n
Hitchcock\u2019s surrealistic bent ensures that even when he\u2019s writing what would otherwise be a straightforward love song, his inspired, left-field turns of phrase give the songs an indelible stamp that marks them as Hitchcock originals. \u201cThe words present themselves to me,\u201d he explains, \u201cbut I\u2019m obviously going to favor words that I think are interesting rather than generic words that could have been said by anybody, anytime.\u201d He admits that when it comes to words, he\u2019s \u201ca bit of a snob.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hitchcock makes the point that words are a songwriter’s sharpest and most effective tool in the creation of original songs. \u201cAll the chord sequences have been used dozens of times,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cI\u2019m not going to invent new chords, and I\u2019m not really going to invent new ways of making melodies flow.\u201d Instead, he says that he\u2019s merely \u201cusing the old pathways, just rearranging them. Really, the only thing that hasn\u2019t been done before is the words.\u201d<\/p>\n
A number of celebrated artists have taken notice of Hitchcock\u2019s gifts, covering select songs from his vast body of work. The Decemberists, the Replacements and Gillian Welch & David Rawlings have covered his songs live onstage. Sparklehorse and Vic Chesnutt both recorded Hitchcock songs. \u201cR.E.M. did one of my songs [\u201cArms of Love\u201d] as a B-side,\u201d he says with a chuckle. \u201cBut they got the chords wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hitchcock says he\u2019s \u201calways surprised\u201d when an artists covers his material. \u201cBecause,\u201d he explains, \u201cI think of my songs as very personal to me.\u201d He likens a cover performance of one of his songs to \u201calmost as if somebody else is reading out from my journal.\u201d At the same time, Hitchcock readily concedes that he\u2019s generally pleased when someone covers his music. \u201cIt\u2019s flattering to think that other people can relate to my songs at all, because I know my songs are very subjective,\u201d he says. \u201cI am a solipsistic person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hitchcock admires songwriters who write about widely-relatable themes. But he doesn\u2019t view himself in that category. \u201cI don\u2019t feel my songs are universal in the way that, say, Beatles songs are universal,\u201d he says. He does note that at least one songwriter has managed to have it both ways. \u201cI suppose what\u2019s intriguing about Bob Dylan is that so many people feel they can relate to him, and yet his lyrics are so peculiar to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Robyn Hitchcock goes about the business of making a new album \u2013 like The Confuser<\/i>, his 25th<\/sup> and latest set for release July 24 \u2013 he\u2019s selecting the best among his most recent compositions and<\/i> crafting the record around a theme. \u201cIf I\u2019ve been living through some particular crisis \u2013 generally of my own making \u2013 then that is liable to result in an album that\u2019s more intense,\u201d he says. Describing 1989\u2019s Queen Elvis<\/i> and Eye<\/i> from 1990 as his \u201cbreakup records,\u201d he says that at the time he was \u201cparticularly battle-scarred, because I was breaking up with pretty much two people at the same time.\u201d And he says that both his 2014 album The Man Upstairs<\/i> and its self-titled followup \u2013 both crafted during a time of personal turmoil \u2013 display a \u201cshocked into wisdom\u201d feel.<\/p>\n The Confuser<\/i> has a thematic unity as well. \u201cIt is very much to do with disintegration,\u201d Hitchcock says. \u201cI\u2019m disintegrating. The environment is disintegrating. America is disintegrating,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not possible for me to shut all that off, so I\u2019m trying to respond to it in an upbeat, positive way rather than wringing my hands and going, \u2018Oh, God, this is so dreadful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Yet even when facing the darkness, a Robyn Hitchcock record is always fun. Backed by a spare, tight ensemble featuring Dr. Dog drummer Eric Slick, bassist Todd Bolden, guitarist Jeremy Fetzer and producer Brad Jones on keys, Hitchcock serves up a message of existential hope, leaved with the songwriter\u2019s trademark weirdness. (Sample couplet: \u201cI grew out of somebody else; she wore a wedding ring \/ And when I decompose I will be part of everything.\u201d)<\/p>\n \u201cDeterioration is a law of life,\u201d Hitchcock says. \u201cIn one way, I feel almost blas\u00e9 about it.\u201d He contemplates upon the unrelenting bad news in print and on screen every day. \u201cYou can\u2019t live your life in a permanent state of red alert; the negative adrenaline that comes by being overstimulated by the news isn\u2019t necessarily helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n Even in the face of that not-so-groovy decay, Hitchcock has much to be happy about. He and fellow singer-songwriter Emma Swift celebrated 10 years of marriage last September. While they rarely collaborate, Swift nonetheless influenced her husband\u2019s work on The Confuser<\/i>. A trained vocalist, Swift \u201creally put me through the wringer when it came to vocals,\u201d Hitchcock says, and the results sing for themselves. A highly regarded artist herself with a pair of albums to her credit, Sydney-born Swift is also the head of Tiny Ghost Records, the label releasing Hitchcock\u2019s albums since 2011.<\/p>\n Swift will open for Hitchcock on select dates of the current tour, including the Grey Eagle performance. And she sometimes joins her partner\u2019s band onstage to provide harmony vocals on some songs. Hitchcock describes his wife\u2019s original music as \u201ca sort of \u201860s dream music; it\u2019s very much not part of its time.\u201d Pausing in reflection, he adds, \u201cI think Em and I have that in common; we\u2019re both not part of our times.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Born in London and a longtime resident of Nashville, singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock enjoys an influential and critically-acclaimed career. With his late \u201870s band the Soft Boys, Hitchcock channeled \u201860s psychedelia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[2452],"class_list":["post-31501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-robyn-hitchcock","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31503,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31501\/revisions\/31503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}