Non-Stop Banter
February/March/April, 1987
Dreaming In Public
by Tina Woelke and Clay Mitchell
A few years ago a handful of hip Rock journalists discussed Robyn Hitchcock as a great undiscovered talent. He was the mind behind the late and (then secretly) great Soft Boys, and as a solo artist his extraordinary Psychedelic Pop has been appreciated by a small-but-intensely-loyal cult following. Well, the cult is growing by leaps and bounds. The Soft Boys are now acknowledged posthumously as one of the more brilliant bands of the '70s. Last year's domestic release of Hitchcock's Fegmania!, the live Gotta Let This Hen Out!, and the subsequent U.S. tour brought Hitchcock media attention that -- while not exactly Springsteenian in scope -- was plenty enthusiastic. With the release of his sixth solo album, Element Of Light -- and another tour of the U.S. -- Hitchcock is hitting his stride with American audiences.
Relativity Records is about to issue the entire back-catalog of Hitchocck works in America -- including a compilation of previously unreleased tracks entitled Invisible Hitchcock. Relativity also plans to release material by Maureen And The Meatpackers, an early Hitchcock project. Hitchcock describes the projected Meatpackers release as high-quality demos of "spirited performances".
Get your checkbook ready, because the Hitchcock catalog is basically a list of must-haves. Every album is a creation of brilliant, visual Pop -- enchanting melodies twined around eccentric, surreal images. Onstage and in interviews, Hitchcock frequently alludes to things crawling into the head and wrapping themselves around the brain -- which is exactly what his songs do to any willing listener. He takes you places you think you've never been before, and makes them feel like home.
You once said that you thought Fegmania! was a friendly album, and that Underwater Moonlight and A Can Of Bees were paranoid albums. How would you describe Element Of Light?
I think it's quite a warm record. It's got a warm little heart, and it beats quietly by itself. It's not going to go out and grab anybody on the shoulder and spin them around. But it will respond well to you if you give it any time. I think the songs will last.
It seems quieter, more Folk-y. Kind of like I Often Dream Of Trains. But is it coming out of a different kind of feeling for you?
Well, someone said they thought it was more paranoid than Fegmania!. I don't know. It's not paranoid in an aggressive sense. It's probably just older and sadder. Not that I've had a bad year. I've had quite a good year, really -- judging years, things have been pretty good lately. Things have been quite hectic. But that's the record you seem to get -- it's not a high-speed, rush record.
One of the songs on the new album, "The President", is political. Do you think that's a part of the sadness?
Well, no. That's just common sense, really. I heard his speech at Bitburg, and I was really scared. I don't generally comment on politics because there are always two sides to it. You have to be involved in it before you can say anything, otherwise you're just repeating what you read in the papers. I was just very frightened by that, by the tone of Reagan's voice. You know [in a patronizing voice]: "Dear little Europe, how do you think we could ever abandon you?" And I thought, "What's he really mean?" What he means is, if we ever let it rip with the Russians, it's going to happen there. Noy, you know...
Limited nuclear warfare.
Yeah! It was exactly because he was trying to allay our fears that it didn't ring true. You read things like -- some American newspaper you get out of a box, and it's terrifyingly anti-Russian. It's an incredibly arrogant attitude. I suppose (as in England) people believe what they read in the papers. America, by and large, is prepared to believe that. Britain is frighteningly old-fashioned in some respects. But their anti-Soviet stance is not as fightening, I suppose, because Britain's never ever going to declare war on Russia. Because you know that the States would love to. And it just seems very un-helpful. Not that I have any love for the KGB or the general...Russia is supposed to be a paranoid country, but you can't really blame them. [There are] such unconstructive attitudes from both the superpowers to each other. As far as they're concerned the rest of the world can go fuck itself. It's appalling. But Britain was like that when it was a superpower. We're like an old lady that's too feeble to do anything anymore but waving our stick in the corner and going [in a wavery voice, shaking his fist in the air]: "Uooh! Yes, I would!"
Now that you've been touring in America a lot in the past few years, do you feel like the political climate affects the music? Or, do you see it affecting audiences at all?
Oh, what? You mean, does the political climate here affect the kind of music that is made here?
Yeah. And, vice versa, in England.
Well, what's interesting is that here, the radical movement of the '60s completely evaporated in music. People like Jefferson Airplane and all that, "Up against the wall," devolved into the CTA. Pledged themselves to the revolution eighteen years ago. I don't know if you remember what it was like, but I do. [Authors' note: The group Chicago, then known as the Chicago Transit Authority, included protesters' chants from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention on their 1969 debut album.] Radicalism sold (and also Vietnam). You know, causes were in. Whereas now, the big drive seems to be to smoke cigarettes and wear jeans and bum around in the place -- riding through Marlboro Country with a compact disc player. Or, you know, "Get yourself in shape, brother," (or whatever). The whole radical thing [has disappeared].
Whereas England wasn't too bad politically in the '60s (although the students were much more aggressive then). It's quite strange to see. It's only fifteen years since the student riots were going on. The long hair...the American Embassy was charged in Grosvenor Square, and there were various incidents -- I think it stemmed from France. But what I was waffling on about -- sorry -- to the end of that is that politics, radical views in the form of people like Billy Bragg and Paul Weller sell in England now just as the Jefferson Starship and the MC-5 and Country Joe -- although his stuff was sort of half-witted, all that acid.... Just as those American musicians sold then, so the English are now. I don't know if there's much radical stuff over here. Bruce Springsteen looks like Rambo -- like his arms have been pumped full of that chicken expander. Sorry, that was a very long speech.
So most of The Sex Pistols' nihilism is gone from the English Rock scene?
Well, no. See, the business being what it is, there's tremendous Punk nostalgia. For about five or six years now, there's been the "Punk's Not Dead" brigade, hanging out in the King's Road looking like they thought The Pistols did. I suppose if you take The Sex Pistols seriously or take any Rock music seriously, they were a kind of icebreaker to show that the dream was over -- you know, it really was -- and that everybody standing around in flares at festivals and things, listening to Pink Floyd...that the shot fired in the '60s had failed. And maybe the organism -- if there is such a thing -- was trying to fire another shot with Punk. And you've got people like -- I mean, I don't like Paul Weller's singing, but I admire the way those people try to be a political force.
I can give you these sermons, but they're all based on probably the newspapers, anyway. I'm not really interested in all that. And I don't think I can write those sorts of songs journalistically about the outside world. If I could, I would. I'd love to be able to. But I think they just come out being didactic, you know? "Thatcher is bad, Reagan is bad, Reagan is worse than Nixon, the world's gonna end." Who needs it? The world inside reflects the outside anxiety. I just dream in public. That's what I do.
I noticed that on the new album the cover seems to be a lot different. It seems a lot starker. It's white and black, without all the writing there was before. How much input do you have into the design?
Oh, I do the covers. The point is, I had to do it in a hurry. You really shouldn't read anything into these covers. [laughs] I thought, "Let's have a black and white cover again." Otherwise, I always want dark green. I always end up with dark green. And I thought, "Shit, another dark green record cover. Right, we haven't had black-and-white for a few years, so let's have black-and-white." The next one will be dark green again, I expect.
What made you decide to put the lyrics in?
Well, it was partly not being misquoted by journalists -- but that backfired because they all got white-label copies (and also the first few thousand that came out here didn't have the bag either). I just thought it would be an interesting thing to do for a change (not that I think these lyrics are any better than usual). I just felt like it. I'd never done it before, really. It's sort of like walking out of a door and turning left instead of right and seeing what happens.
You've done your cartoons and your album covers -- do you pursue your artwork outside of the albums?
Yeah, I do. But I don't really get enough time off. We spend a lot of time over the records.
Are there any artists in other media who you think do what you accomplish, or are trying to accomplish what you are -- a counterpart to you in a different medium?
Not exactly, no. But I expect there are lots of people trying to do more or less the same thing. I don't know much about it, actually. There's no one I'm trying to imitate. I'm not a very good painter. I think I'm quite good at drawing -- I've got a good sense of line. But I don't know much about color (and I'm too lazy to go to evening classes and get my painting technique sorted out).
So it's a hobby?
It's a hobby. But it's an important one. I neglected it in The Soft Boys years. I hardly drew or painted at all. In the last couple of years I've gone back to it. And I'm going to try to get an exhibition one day in New York -- an art exhibition. It must be possible. I might even have one in London.
How about directing? You've directed videos, would you think of doing something animated?
I'd like to, but I'm not an animator. I don't know anything about it. I mean, if somebody adapted my pictures and animated it into a film, that would be great. But I know it's very expensive, and I've never roughed out an idea. I have trouble thinking about any one thing for very long, so I never write long stories. I just can't concentrate. My brain just skitters around like a moth in a lampshade.
You once said that people are haunted by the ghost of their own potential. When you started out in music, what kind of things did you envision? Do you think you're accomplishing a lot of those things?
I didn't think I actually had any talent or ability at all. I just wanted to do that -- because I didn't want to do anything else. I wanted to escape into it.
How did you start?
I just played in Folk clubs. I was in art school, and then I went up to Cambridge. And then we started The Soft Boys, and then we stopped The Soft Boys, and...whatever. Nothing very exciting.
So it's not like you had projected dreams that...
Oh, I had fantasies. You have Rock star fantasies. I should think most little boys grow up with Rock star fantasies. I'd rather have that than soldier fantasies. But I didn't really know what it was all about. But you don't know, do you, whether you're ever letting down your teenage self? You think, "What would the seventeen-year-old-me think about that?"
Or does it even matter...
Well, it does, in a way, because your kids are going to be seventeen one day. The perspective an adolescent has is often very extreme, but it often has a, sort of, purity that adults who've been compromising too long no longer have. A kid can turn around and say, "Look at this mess, how'd you get yourself into that mess?" And an adult can say, "Well, I can explain: it's been a long process..." Everyone has a, kind of, damaged life to an extent.
How old is your daughter?
She's ten.
What does she think of your music?
I think now she's probably rather intrigued by it. She's very supportive. She can do great takeoffs of me. She's quite...yeah, "supportive". That's the word for it. I was singing some songs downstairs one night with someone else. And I found out she'd been listening to the music, and I thought, "Oh, god! Young ears aren't meant to hear this stuff."
Do you think she'll rebel against your music like we rebel against the music of our parents?
Well, they already do. If we put something on that we like, like the Incrdible String Band (or something), she'll just go, "Yeech. What is this crap?" Generation-wise, the barriers are up there already. She likes Michael Jackson and Madonna. I've got a son as well -- a stepson -- and the interesting thing is that of the old things, they like The Beatles. The Beatles have lasted. But a lot of the other stuff, I think they just think, "Oh, that crap."
How do they explain your music to their friends?
I don't know! I don't suppose they have to. They just say, "Oh, my dad plays Rock 'n' Roll." "He's not on Top Of The Pops, is he?" "No, but he goes and sings in America." "Oh, I see." Every so often one of them sees me on the telly -- or they hear me on the radio -- and they'll say, "Oh, I saw your dad..." I certainly don't advise them. I don't try to teach them instruments (or anything). I think it's inevitable that people drift into...[looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully] I was just thinking -- someone asked me about my father. I realized that he should have been in show business. He was too protected. He's still alive -- he's about 65.
What did he do?
He was unsuccessfully a painter for a while, and then he started writing. He had a book turned into a film once. Had a load of books written Anyway, he writes thrillers, but really he's a comedian. But he's never had a vehicle for being a comic. He doesn't know how. And occasionally he gives little talks to people -- some think they're quite good. But he should have just been a personality.
Do you feel like that's what the music is letting you do: just be a personality?
Oh, sure. It's a drive toward that. I mean, the drive is toward getting attention. It doesn't matter how you do it: kill people, or be a politician, or paint, or sing. But if you paint there's no one watching you do it. And for an exhibitionist, Rock music's perfect -- so long as they don't throw things at you.
Has anyone ever thrown anything at you?
People used to chuck things at us in the days of Punk. I was terrified. But that's just because I'm not physically active. I never got into fights (and stuff like that) like The Clash, who, sort of, happily throw each other over the amplifiers.
At many shows, people crowd toward the front, reaching up on the stage. What do you think they're reaching for?
You mean physically reaching? It's not really that bad because they don't actually touch my legs or anything. They pay pretty close attention. Presumably they're being entertained. Whether they wish they were you, or they'd like to eat you, or just climb into your brain and go to sleep... I don't know what they want to do to you, or whether they want some substitute for their own lives. You know, you watch a film, it's a substitute for your own life. You're there providing a diversion for someone (and hopefully not a worthless diversion).
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