Instant
November/December, 1999
Robyn Hitchcock
by Joanie Pfister
"What a great time to do something like this...twilight in a park," mused Robyn Hitchcock setting the tone for an introspective philosophical dialogue that would touch upon the core of his vast experiences -- the sum of his being. It was a clever comment if one is familiar with Robyn Hitchcock's penchant for gardens and parks. His museum website contains a fascinating array of sculpture that is located in a garden. Even his press photo was taken outdoors in a garden. He is full of natural imagery and unexpected viewpoints that have grown with fertilizer and proper cultivation over the years.
One of the most respected icons of the Alternative Rock scene is also one of the most prolific and intelligent artists to work over the last twenty years. His career began in the late 1970s with the birth of The Soft Boys. Later, he worked with a new lineup in The Egyptians. And we find him today as a solo artist. His discography is extensive. The most commercially accessible works are Globe Of Frogs and Perspex Island, while his more interesting works include Storefront Hitchcock and his new gem, Jewels For Sophia.
Toward the end of the summer of 1999, he toured acoustic with The Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, IQU, and Cornelius. The fans were given a treat when Sebadoh backed him for electric versions of several new songs from his latest release, Jewels For Sophia. Robyn Hitchcock offered these insights about his tour-mates and their use of technology in connection with their art and music: "I think that The Lips are very DIY when it comes to technology. They have all this stuff like the headphones, and they have the screens, and they have the film of Stephen playing the drums. But there's something very homemade about it all, the way it's done. It doesn't feel oppressively digital. It hasn't got all the computer graphics with the second-generation-druggie overtones." He then went on to admit to an uncomfortable feeling around technology.
Robyn Hitchcock seemed to have a carefully honed opinion about the human race. It was thoughtful and philosophically pragmatic. "It's fairly obvious that the end is nigh. Whether it happens before or after the year 2000 makes little difference to god -- or whatever it is that knows and sees all. The Earth is a form of intelligence and, it's produced us and we're, sort of, mobile and representative of that intelligence. But we are not stable enough yet to go into space in a serious way. If we carry on in another 200 or 300 years or less, we will have the capacity to reach other galaxies. In our present state, this would be a disaster for the universe because humans are not fit. We're like a virus. The sad thing is that we know it. Therefore, there is the possibility that we will stop ourselves and everything else here before we contaminate the universe, which is terrible -- but not as terrible as it would be if we got out there. We are not a race of poets and saints. We are a race of Starbucks. We are a race of Kudzu. We are all-the-more dangerous for apparently having good points. It's not like we're all Visigoths with horns and teeth poking out like The Evil Empire -- we're not Klingons. We're frightfully nice. There we are. We're still carrying Hitler on our backs. We are part of the global intelligence -- what some people would like to call "god" -- and it may just be that we're not going to make it. Maybe we will, but it would be nice to think that if we did that we actually turned some corner first. If it happens to coincide with our lifetime and the year 2000 then..." And the statement regarding the fate of mankind by Robyn Hitchcock wafted off into the lush night air in Boston Garden.
On a more optimistic note, Robyn Hitchcock does believe in a higher intelligence and he proffered these observations: "We are within a higher intelligence. We are developing our own. We're very clever, but we're not very bright. It's lopsided. That's why I get pissed off when people crow about technology. There are billions of ways of getting in touch with people in Hong Kong, but you still can't actually get along with your neighbor. You can go into the cyber-world, but you can't even relate to your friends. It would be sort of nice if some of that money were spent on adult education and things like teaching people to do simple things like listen to each other. I mean, most people have to pay a therapist."
For Robyn Hitchcock, art is larger than the sum of our lives because it leaves a record of time behind where our fingerprints fade into the dust from whence we came. "Art is culture," he stated. "None of us live, but the only thing that does live is our culture. This is why it's so important that our culture doesn't become completely debased and that we don't erase everything that's happened. It's important that people remember Beethoven, Oscar Wilde, and all sorts of people. If you think about it, none of us is going to last more than eighty years. But the culture carries on, and maybe what the real organism is is the culture, and we are just facets of it. It's our legacy. You could argue that everything man-made is art."
Robyn Hitchcock's music tends to be carefree and whimsical in his formative years, and more serious and cynical in later works. In the quest to find balance, one wonders if the less serious topics like "balloon men" or "vegetation and dimes" detract from the musical and emotional elements. He offered these opinions about his own growth and development as an artist. "It's incredibly sad and rather ludicrous at the same time. You know, the truism that, 'Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.' And so maybe it's a mixture of the two. I mean, when I was younger, I could only really write funny songs. I didn't have a basis on which to write the kind of songs I wanted to write. As I've gotten older, I've developed a, sort of, emotional depth, so I can now sing a twelve-bar blues without feeling stupid. I feel like I have a right to do this. Even ten years ago I wasn't sure I had that. I was much more defensive or deflective. I wasn't sure that I should be doing this kind of work. In a way, I feel very comfortable these days. I think I'm on the right track. I'm encouraged to do this. So, you try taking it up. The string is as long as the piece piping -- you can't have it poking out both ends. If you make it serious, then all the other people complain. If you make it too flippant, then the people with less sense of humor complain. You just have to hope that people get it sometimes."
Most artists are sensitive beings who crave feedback and search for praise, but have a hard time with the process of being judged and compared. Robyn Hitchcock is one of those beings. His reaction to criticism: "When people say something about you personally and what you do personally, you take it very much to heart for a while. Under a constant rain of abuse, you're not going to bother what people say so much. You're going to worry about what the majority say. Obviously, I'm defensive about it, but what's wrong with that? After about five years you get over it. It comes from you. In a lot of ways, it's the best part of who you are. It's the quintessence of somebody. That's not always true. It's terrible to be criticized; but it's also good to be able to accept praise, which was something I could never do. I just hated it when people attacked me, but I wasn't always grateful when people liked what I did."
There are definitely songs that Robyn Hitchcock won't perform anymore, and he attributed this fact mainly to his personal growth and maturity as an artist. "I've written a lot of songs. I do songs going back twenty years or more. I don't think that I wrote anything good until about 1979. I often do Soft Boys songs in a set, but I think that some of the songs have lasted and other ones haven't. They just sound a bit silly. I think I was in a funny state of mind. And I wouldn't sing them anymore because I don't really quite know what possessed me to write them. I still do things like 'Kingdom Of Love'. I guess songwriting is erratic. Also, all of the songs resonate more. At least it's my own stuff. They're my own songs. So I'm only in competition with myself, and I'm pleased that those things have lasted. They're always going to have more records, so songs that I've done in the last ten years haven't been around so long -- even for me or for people that listen to it. So, they're not going to mean the same as really old things, and maybe in ten years' time I (or other people) will know what's the best stuff from the '90s. The more unnerving thing is wondering whether one has peaked or not because most people, by the time they've reached my age, have long written their best material a long way in the past. All of the people I admire peaked by the time they were thirty. I was a late-developer. I didn't write anything that good until I was in my thirties. It's always possible that I'm actually five albums past myself, I think. I don't think so, but you can't gauge immediate reaction to the things people say about your new record. It's good. I've got lots of stuff to draw on."
Then Robyn Hitchcock discussed a point that he alluded to before pertaining to mankind, art and its fate. "Capitalism has an agenda," he began in response to a query about Rock having an agenda. "The role of capitalism is to take us down with it. It's based upon an impossible concept. I'm not really sure how this works, but I have a feeling it doesn't. Rock music is dead, but it's like a tree that's fallen over and lots of sap is running out the side of it. It's peaked. It peaked long ago. As long as there are kids, there will always be a market. The biggest market is children. The music market is terrified."
Since Robyn Hitchcock is on a major label -- Warner Brothers -- one wonders how he reconciles personal perception of capitalism with his contributions to it. Everyone who lives in a Western culture is a participant in it through birth and association, but how does it make one actually feel? How can one live with a clear conscience in a capitalistic society if it clashes with your personal viewpoints? Robyn Hitchcock offered these opinions. "Capitalism is so insidious. Unless you decide to live on a homestead and weave your own clothes and grow your own eggplants, then you're buying into something that you don't necessarily approve of. Is it possible to be a human being and be good? We contain the seeds of what we discern to be good and evil. I mean, people are not totally good, and I don't think you can expect us to lead totally good lifestyles. The only thing you can try to do is to steer it for the better. I wouldn't be naive enough to say that, 'Man, I want to change the system from within.' I have no illusions about that. I think you certainly get to know the society by living in it. I feel more strongly about the effects of capitalism than I did ten years ago when I was basically more nihilistic and more self-involved. I don't think it would be possible to ever completely disengage yourself from the forces of capitalism in this society. You would have to have a very major revolution to do that -- and revolutions have a habit of countering counterrevolutions."
When asked to stretch his imagination for us and relate his idea of the perfect show, Robyn Hitchcock had this response. "I think I would put the audience someplace different -- like somehow manage to transport five hundred people to treetops somewhere, to a forest, and they would just hang there from harnesses and listen. Or you hire or build a zeppelin -- make sure it's flame-proof gas and that they take out a lot of insurance -- and then get a sixty-foot gondola underneath with 1930s wicker chairs, and do a concert with the gondola and the zeppelin flying over The Atlantic. That kind of thing. Rather than have special effects, just provide people with shows in different locations. It would be great to get a grant to do that. Another one would be underwater -- to get a glass train built that would run under the English Channel. Or maybe, run somewhere in the Caribbean, not too far below the surface, like EPCOT Center (or something). You know, there are aquariums where you can walk, and there are fish passing overhead. Something that's in a glass tunnel, that's sea-based, so that people can see these creatures swirling around while I'm singing."
Robyn Hitchcock has so many artistic talents -- writing, singing, playing, painting, sketching -- that one wonders how he focuses his energy and attention to obtain the most fulfillment. "I don't," he stated." I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to do things. Actually, I spend most of my time just publicizing myself. Once upon a time I was an artist, and now I've become a, sort of...the thing that I enjoy most is music and writing songs, but sometimes I'm not going to be able to so. Then I'll paint or write a story. I've been writing a novel, but it's really difficult (and it's so much more fun to write songs or play the piano). So I, kind of, major in songwriting and the other two things are ancillary abilities that I have. Perhaps there may come a time when I'm not going to tour so much. I won't want to or be able to bump around the world quite as much as I have been. I can stay at home and paint and write stuff then. I feel now as long as I'm this side of fifty or sixty I may as well go out and play. It's a state of body, too. The whole thing is going to wear out sooner or later. In the end you'll never be able to do the things that you want to do most -- unless you're a masochist."
Robyn Hitchcock is a true artist and Alternative icon who is both engaging and highly intelligent. The world certainly hopes that he'll be able to achieve all of the things that he'd like to do before he tires of bumping around the world. This type of individual makes a difference by cultivating gardens for our minds and souls. They bestow thoughtful gifts that are left behind in the soft grains of sand that we hope will never be washed away by the backwaters of humanity. Everything makes a difference.
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