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1995
"I Got Hit By Prawns Once At The Marquee"
Weird Words From Robyn Hitchcock
Pretty much all your back catalogue has been released over the last few months. Is it weird seeing these albums floating around again?
One of the most interesting things is realising that years like 1984 are now in the past. Because they always used to be in the future. That's quite a strange feeling.
You've written some fairly bizarre stuff. Do you ever look back and think, "What was I on about?"?
Yeah. I think some of them sound quite childish. Things like "The Man With The Lightbulb Head", "Brenda's Iron Sledge", "Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl". It's all pretty teenage psychotic stuff. The tragic thing is that I was already 30 when I wrote them. I was definitely a late developer.
You're a lot more famous in American than over here. Do they see you as some sort of English eccentric?
No. It's the British who see me as an English eccentric. I think it's all due to a misunderstanding that we had with the Rock press back in the Punk era. They never trusted us. I mean, I never sought to be on Top Of The Pops, but I didn't necessarily seek the degree of obscurity that I have. We were middle-class kids with long hair playing psychedelic music. It's not going to go down well, is it?
Why do you write so many songs about fish?
Fish are beautiful-looking things. As are crabs and prawns. And insects. Wasps and bees. I don't like flies much. I just write about things that I like the look of. The next record will have a lot of stuff about cats and kiosks and dials. I seem to be into those things at the moment. I do like fish, though. A guy brought a live lobster on to the tour bus in Chicago once. This hippie brought it in a white bucket. We took it to the Chicago Home For Lobsters. He said he was planning to throw it onstage. Thank god he didn't. I would have retired if I'd been hit by a live lobster. They've got their place. But it's not being thrown at me, onstage. Mind you, I did get hit by some prawns once at The Marquee. I thought for a second they'd burst out of me, like that thing in Alien. Thankfully, this turned out not to be the case.
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