The Boston Globe
May 14, 1993
Forget The Fish And Frogs: Hitchcock's Getting Real
by Jim Sullivan
Robyn Hitchcock has bid a fond adieu to a big chunk of his past. Instead of writing pyschedelic, mind-scrambling songs about frogs, fish, a balloon man, another man with a lightbulb head, and women-cum-wasps; he is keen on writing more direct songs about the human condition.
The 41-year-old Hitchcock -- former frontman of the New Wave-era Soft Boys and longtime leader of The Egyptians -- is now focusing on love, transition, and death.
"People got used to one thing, and now we're another," he says, on the phone from Charleston, West Virginia earlier this week. The proof is on his last two albums with The Egyptians -- Perspex Island and Respect -- and will likely be played out at Nightstage Tuesday night. (The show has been moved from Berklee Performance Center.)
"I think a lot of my past maneuvers were based on fear," says Hitchcock. "Fear of myself, a fear of thinking of myself as human, a fear of thinking of myself as in the same world as everybody else. I wanted to be an outsider. I looked to various Pop heroes (or cult figures) like Syd Barrett, Captain Beefheart, and Dylan. I wanted to be one of them: a musician who stood outside the world, or hated it (or whatever it was).
"I think there was a lot of denial in my songs. I was trying to rush off into a celebration of organic disgust (or something), rather than feel what I really felt. It was like I had my eyes staring into space, and I'm just ranting -- but thinking, 'Get to the point!'"
On the latest album, Respect, Hitchcock and company made a concerted effort to cut to the emotional quick, to write strong melodies, and to keep the Rock 'n' Roll mania in check. Which means, at the least, Hitchcock is not going after the Grunge market.
"So-called 'Alternative' music has gotten very harsh," says Hitchcock. "The Metal and Rap influences, the Grunge scene -- it's all very high-volume. And here we are getting rid of our amplifiers and going gray. It's not particularly trendy. We're not shrieking around on skateboards with our caps on backwards."
For Hitchcock And The Egyptians -- bassist Andy Metcalfe and drummer Morris Windsor (also former Soft Boys) -- the challenge was to hone and edit the newer songs. To maintain their semi-acoustic purity. Of the older, more elliptical material, Hitchcock says, "There were some good lines. Yet, at the same time they seem frighteningly imprecise. Now, I don't cultivate a stream of words. I actually find it harder to write. Words are particularly difficult because it's so easy for me to say something without meaning anything. So: do I just turn it on and wait for something interesting to come up, or do I watch myself like a hawk and say, 'Come on Robyn, stick to the point.'?"
Hitchcock admits he and The Egyptians were often (and not wrongly) perceived as a "freak show for the intelligentsia." He adds, "It wasn't like we'd become it: we always were. We come from a very elitist background: educated, middle-class, British. We don't particularly have the common touch. But, at the same time, I think a lot of the new songs would make sense to a lot more people than the businesspeople think. I suspect you can put on Perspex Island and Respect, and while they're quite demanding, they're not impossible. They don't demand that you submit yourself to my worldview -- as maybe I did five or 10 years ago. I'm trying to see with people and I want them to see with me, rather than them looking at me and going, 'Oh wow! How does he come up with those contortions?' I identify with other people more. And I think, eventually, they will more with me. I seem to be more human-orientated these days. I think a lot of people can pick up on this.
"But because of the way we steered our career in the earlier days, because of the figure I liked to cut, we've become defined in the marketplace in a restrictive way. If I'd wanted to go on writing songs about frogs and fish and bats and toads and giraffes and seers and orbs and globes the rest of my days, all would be fine. Certain people would keep coming -- it'd be like Terminator 3: Globe of Frogs 2. But it isn't like that. I think right now we're very outside of things."
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