Vogue
August, 1993
Rockin' Robyn
After Years On The College Circuit, Robyn Hitchcock Has Finally Broken Through
by Barney Hoskyns
If there were any justice in the world, Robyn Hitchcock would be an English cult hero. But it's the very English middle-class-ness of the man which has made it so tricky for this determinedly quirky character to gain any sort of foothold in the British Pop scene. If it's perfectly acceptable for Suede to crawl out of semi-detached Haywards Heath, it's somehow always been unforgivable that Hitchcock's legendary postpunk band, The Soft Boys, formed at -- pause for blushes -- Cambridge University.
In the U.S., though, Hitchcock and his Egyptians -- comprising ex-Soft Boys Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe -- encounter no such invertedly snobbish obstacles to acclaim. Over there, college students (and Robyn's pals R.E.M.) treat him with the kind of reverence reserved for Brits such as Richard Thompson, helping him shift albums in six-figure quantities. (He now lives for most of the year in Washington, D.C..)
Hitchcock's latest A&M album, Respect, provides clues as to how he's managed the transition from left-field Limey oddball to credible '90s Rock artist. Chock-full of sparkling tunes and harmonies, the record shows how far the man's come from the unconvincing sub-Syd Barrett Psychedelia of his earlier waxings -- and how moving a melodist he can be when it suits him. "I'd been wanting to write more emotionally direct songs for years," he says. "It only occurred to me fairly recently that I wasn't. I think maybe I just let myself get a bit too wrapped up in my own wacky aesthetic -- and that aesthetic didn't
communicate to people."
If the fey, playful voice is still there, the songs -- the lovely "Railway Shoes", the stark "Then You're Dust" -- betray a new, fortysomething maturity. The death of Hitchcock's father last year seems to have made him readier to risk the odd note of seriousness. "Our humour used to mask the fact that we're actually pretty good musicians," he says. "And maybe underneath we were scared of being taken seriously. So we were always flippant, and people took it the
wrong way."
But then, lest we start taking Hitchcock and his Egyptians too seriously, they wind up Respect with the irresistibly daft "Wafflehead" -- boasting such unforgettable lines as "Her calabash is where I crash/When I escape the bitter lash". At which point we realise that Robyn Hitchcock will always be a kooky Englishman at heart.
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