The Record
August 13, 1999
A Loyal Following Keeps Robyn Hitchcock Writing
by Dan Armonaitis
The fact that Robyn Hitchcock isn't a household name is emblematic of the creative tailspin mainstream Pop music has taken since the heyday of The Beatles and The Byrds. Because today's Pop world is dominated by mediocre music and unimaginative lyrics, the English artist, one of the most creative wordsmiths of the past two decades, is forced to reside on the fringe of Pop society.
Hitchcock's music has a surrealistic quality, evoking dreamlike visions for the listener. And his lyrics, usually dealing with such subjects as death and sex, often feature a wry twist that walks a thin line between the profound and the hysterical. Definitely not today's Top 40 fodder.
"Generally, the more serious things get, the closer they become to getting ludicrous, because you cross the dateline from the despair into the absurd," Hitchcock says of his songwriting. "Things get so bad, they're funny. You can read the lines back, and sometimes the whole thing seems too flippant, and other times it seems too dour. And I think it's a constant struggle between the two."
While Hitchcock's lyrical ruminations are uniquely his own, his musical influences shine brightly. And '60s psychedelic bands shine the brightest.
While Hitchcock -- whose latest effort, Jewels For Sophia, is his most rocking album in years -- may not have much commercial success, he has some of the most loyal fans anywhere.
"I've always written for myself, and I think, paradoxically, the closer you try to get to yourself, the closer you reach other people," Hitchcock says. "It's like symbiosis. I provide something that they need, and they, in turn, fund me to stay alive and keep providing it.
"And because it's a genuine need rather than a vogue-ish need, they've stayed with me."
Among his staunch following throughout the years are R.E.M. and filmmaker Jonathan Demme. In fact, Demme is such a fan of Hitchcock that he turned one of his performances into a feature film called Storefront Hitchcock.
"I was rather shocked when I saw it, just seeing my head that big on the screen," Hitchcock says. "My head was like the size of one wall of a house. My guitar was longer than a streetcar. It was really shocking to see me that big. So I always feel a bit edgy watching it.
"But I think it sounds and looks really good."
The 47-year-old Hitchcock has been making music since the Seventies, when he formed the commercially unsuccessful but highly influential Soft Boys, a band that mixed '60s Psychedelia with '70s Punk Rock.
"I don't think I look back on the days very fondly, but I look back on the music fondly," Hitchcock says of those formative years. "I'm very proud of what we did in the different lineups of The Soft Boys. There was nobody like us at the time."
Perhaps Hitchcock's fondest memory of those days was the band's first trip to The United States.
"Walking through the canyons of New York was fantastic," Hitchcock says. "It was exactly as we had seen it on television except there was no soundtrack. I thought, 'Where's the wa-wa guitar and the funky saxophone and all that?' There's so much preproduction done on America in England, and so when you first come here, it's like the moment you've been primed for."
In The United States, Hitchcock found a much more-accepting audience than in his native England, where even today, he says, he's viewed as an outsider.
"Over there they still refer to me as English, which is unusual given that I come from England," Hitchcock says. "They're always saying 'English' (or 'British') 'eccentric songwriter' or something. I'm, sort of, a foreigner in my own land as far as the British are concerned."
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