Chicago Daily Herald
November 5, 1999
Cult Favorite Hitchcock Releases His Most Accessible Album Yet
by Mark Guarino
When Robyn Hitchcock is asked to talk about writing, he can't help but think of it in obtuse terms:
"To me, it's a very innocent process," he says. "All I know is that when I think about it, it just shrivels up and disappears. It's kind of like reaching for your lover in a dream: when you finally get them it's not them, or, you pucker your lips to kiss them, they just blow away like a mist or disappear or shrivel up. It's just something not to know."
Hitchcock is responsible for some of Pop's strangest -- but most enduring catalogs -- of songs. He could be considered a cult artist -- but one who records for a major label (Warner Bros.), who was just the subject of a concert film by acclaimed film director Jonathan Demme, and who is credited as the direct influence of some of the most pivotal bands of the early-'80s (The Replacements, R.E.M.).
If songwriting is a mystery to the songwriter, the results have made more and more sense to his growing fanbase of 30 years.
The mark of a Hitchcock song is to take otherwise odd subjects (cheese, a boy made of balloons) or pure rhythmic nonsense ("The Yip Song"), and shake them all together in a shiny, witty, Pop context. Then there's always a moment in the song where, suddenly, everything makes deadly sense.
A new song, "NASA Clapping", imagines astronaut Buzz Aldrin telling the singer he's going to be rich one day, with the sound of, indeed, NASA clapping behind him in support. Aldrin tells him of plans for a golf course on the moon while the singer ultimately comes to the horrible realization, "As we contaminate the sky the moon becomes a shrieking skull".
Another song, "Viva Sea-Tac", celebrates the Seattle-Tacoma area's reputation for '90s commerce and homeless people with this blessing: "They've got the best computers and coffee and smack".
If Hitchcock's career has been cult-ish it's because he wanted it that way.
"I've always liked to see what the trends are and then go in the opposite direction. I always think there's more room at the other end of the field," he says. "Obviously, the price you pay for that is you're permanently in the shadows."
The Soft Boys, the UK group Hitchcock formed in 1976 and recorded with until 1981, wrote Melodic Pop in the face of New Wave and Punk Rock that reigned at the time. The band was a commercial failure but later was credited with bridging The Byrds' Folk Rock sound from the early-'70s to the early-'80s when R.E.M. took up the baton. R.E.M. later invited Hitchcock to open its 1988 tour, and guitarist Peter Buck often records with him still.
Hitchcock's solo career rebounded in 1984 with a new band, The Egyptians, but its lineup was familiar, featuring Soft Boys Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe. They released albums on several independent and major labels, scored some hits on the college charts, and toured the U.S. several times. But Hitchcock broke up the band in 1993 once he turned 40.
Another former Soft Boy, Kimberley Rew, joins Hitchcock on his current U.S. tour (they make a Metro stop Wednesday), but he insists he no longer is interested in being in a band.
"When you're in your twenties, it's natural for young men to hunt in packs," he says. "In your thirties it's a little bit more questionable, over 40 you should have a life rather than be in a band, and over 50 it should be illegal.
"The Stones should pay a heavy fine for staying together. It's just more natural not to be in a pack."
Like the old Soft Boys days when they countered current tastes, The Egyptians suffered when Nirvana's Nevermind ushered in Grunge in 1991, changing the rules once again for what radio and mainstream ears wanted to hear. Alone with no band, Hitchcock spent time gardening, painting, drawing and writing fiction in his West London home. He also wrote the album Moss Elixir, which spun the hit "Alright, Yeah". It was his first album for Warner Bros..
Recording for the label, Hitchcock -- like Richard Thompson or John Hiatt -- is considered more a prestige artist: the reviews are always great, but the sales usually small.
Jewels For Sophia is Hitchcock's newest album for the label and, produced by Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann), it's his most accessible-sounding yet. But not lyrically, of course. Even in its full Rock moments, Hitchcock's music doesn't sound like anyone else's. He could be like that wise fool in the corner of the pub you can't help but be drawn to.
"You could write a song like 'Changes', or 'Here We Go Again', or 'I'm In The Mood For You'; but they'd all sound like cliches," he said. "If you look at the titles of songs by people who have been around for awhile now, like The Stones or McCartney, they're all depressingly cliched. They're all the same -- which is a drag."
You can bet they never wrote a song called "The Cheese Alarm". It was written in a coffee shop in downtown Chicago when Hitchcock was here for a tour stop. It's an example of how he considers songs to "have a mind of their own".
"I'm pretty passive about it -- and respectful," he says. "What I see as my role is to entice them into being. Put down sugar and see if they'll come in to land."
"The cheese alarm" simply was a phrase that popped into his head when he took a stroll from his hotel. He saw a coffee shop, sat down, and wrote the lyrics. They're a grocery list of different cheeses he strings together until the stinger: "Half the world starving and half the world bloats/Half the world sits on the other and gloats".
"I think it's more confident than most of the records I've done," he said. "A lot of my stuff has been pretty somber, especially the stuff from the late-'80s and -'90s. The 40s have been the best decade of my life."
Much of the confidence Hitchcock relates to his home life: his six-year relationship with Michele Noach, an artist and deaf interpreter, has been a boon (she designed the album art). Their relationship is felt on "I Feel Beautiful", a song with strange but wonderfully simple images: "I feel like a creature that is sleekly groomed/Not some poisoned soul that is alone and doomed" he sings.
The mood-change has helped his writing. Hitchcock wrote so many songs for the album, he'll release a second album of outtakes, A Star For Bram, on his website in January. By that time he hopes to have a second draft done on his first novel.
Hitchcock's music sounds more upbeat and silly because, he says, he and his girlfriend "make an emphasis of celebrating things," which, he admits, has been a struggle.
"I'm a child of Dylan. Dylan's a musician but he's a complaining musician," he says. "The good in him always has to be questioned. There's nothing as intense as Dylan, he's still making records that go down deep as most.
"There's points you have to say, 'Yes, this all sucks, but I still love the trees,' or, 'I still really enjoy eating radishes,' or, 'Isn't it great to get drunk?' or, 'God, it's fantastic. Let's go upstairs and have some more sex,'" he laughs.
"This is really un-Rock 'n' Roll to go about being grateful about things. I'm well past the age that listening to my music is going to piss your parents off. I'm not dangerous," Hitchcock says. "I'm in squaresville, daddy-o."
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