Reflex
February 25, 1992
Flora And Fauna
by Kurt B. Reighley
Since his earliest days with The Soft Boys in the late-1970s, Robyn Hitchcock has created unique Pop songs that blend '60s-flavored melodies and his own brand of lyricism -- sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, often indecipherable. Along with his band The Egyptians (bassist Andy Metcalfe and drummer Morris Windsor), Hitchcock has slowly amassed an almost fanatical following. With the release of his latest album, Perspex Island (A&M), Hitchcock stands poised to break into the mainstream. In contrast to 1990's solo effort Eye (Twin Tone/A&M), Perspex Island features a fuller sound and Robyn's most direct lyrics to date. On a fall afternoon, Robyn (assisted by his teenage daughter Maisie) answered a variety of questions, chosen at random from an array of prewritten cards.
When are you at the height of your creativity?
In the morning. Between getting up and whenever I have lunch. That's usually when I write.
Is this a conscious effort, or just a pattern that's developed?
I just love doing it. There's nobody in the house. I just go downstairs with a guitar. The other time is if I've traveled and I get home and there's nobody there. I pick up the guitar and sit down at the table. And certain places around the table I write a lot. I always write facing outdoors, rather than looking into the house. It's either to do with a sense of motion or getting up, arriving.
Did you make a determined attempt to be more emotionally articulate on Perspex Island?
I was hoping to be. I wanted to cut through a lot of extra foliage that had sprung up around my work. On the acoustic album [Eye] I tried that by not having any extra musicians, so I'd get spontaneous performances. But there were still too many words, badly focused lyrics. So this time, I tried to take out the stuff I thought was tangential. I love the tangential -- it's what I'm good at. People come to watch me deviate. But I wanted to see if there was anything apart from the ability to deviate.
Did you constrict yourself during the writing, or go back and edit later?
I hoped to be more concise before I wrote the songs, but I didn't sit there holding the pen thinking, "Be concise, Robyn, don't waffle!" What you write is the luck of the draw.
Was it easier and more fun to work with The Egyptians after making a solo record?
Yes! Queen Elvis was a very dense record, and we'd made three records
exactly the same way. I wanted to get a record out that didn't have to cross-refer with anyone else. I felt like there was an enormous gap between how I felt and what actually came out -- as if I was trapped by my own method of songwriting. I still feel that, to a large extent. On Eye, I just hoped to get things out more directly rather than going via Robyn Hitchcock and Andy Metcalfe and Morris Windsor and the record company and the press (and all the rest of it). So having tried that approach, it was nice to get back to the others.
Did you miss having help?
Doing Eye, the only other person was the engineer -- and she was another
Pisces, like myself. So when I said, "What do you think, Wendy?" she'd say, "No... uh, yes." It was very difficult to reach any decisions. We were all water and no bowl (so we just slopped all over the place).
Talk about making videos.
I don't like making videos. I think they're part of an insidious international plot to make people watch TV all the time. TV beams some kind of invisible drug into our systems -- which is being concocted by the CIA, General Motors, and the Mafia -- designed to reduce the whole planet to cathode-dependent zombies by the year 2007. I think the biggest menace confronting the country is not crack or heroin or AIDS, it's the TV. I'm also very concerned to get our new video ["So You Think You're In Love"] onto MTV on heavy rotation, so that we can get on contemporary hit radio. Both of these statements are true.
What childhood memories have been tormenting you lately?
I remember I used to be very content setting fire to ants and grasshoppers. I once threw a stone covered with ants into a pool, and a snake slithered out. I was quite content just torturing things mindlessly.
Would you burn them with matches, or a magnifying glass?
Both. I used to hunt birds, too. But I never shot them -- I just followed them around holding an air rifle. It's funny: hunting and killing are so relaxing. I don't eat meat. And I don't approve of things killing things. But I eat fish. Fish apparently only have memories of two seconds. By the time they get to one end of the bowl, they can't remember leaving the other.
Discuss the song "So You Think You're In Love".
I arrived home and there was nobody there. So I picked up the guitar and sang it verbatim into a tape recorder. I think we were getting together and playing at Morrissey's party last year, and Kimberley Rew [ex-Soft Boys/Katrina And The Waves]. And we got together in the studio and ran through that song. I had some problem with the end of the second little bit, and he suggested going "everyone know-woah-woahs".
Several critics have suggested it's a song about coming out of the closet.
I'm getting married to a woman next year. It could be. But as far as I'm concerned, it has more to do with confidence. When I say "straight about it", I could've said "short" or "sure". You mean they think of it in terms of, "You're in love with a man, but unfortunately you've got to be straight?" Brilliant. That fits in absolutely perfect. No, I'm afraid it's nothing as devious as that.
What are some popular misconceptions people have about you?
That it's all a joke. I can understand people thinking that, 'cause I'm quite a slippery character. People think that maybe my stuff is worthless because it's funny. Maybe each person in the record-buying community has seven seconds a day to think about Robyn Hitchcock -- of which they spend five seconds thinking right thoughts and two seconds thinking wrong ones.
Discuss the song "Sleeping With Your Devil Mask".
I made it up in a hotel in Liverpool, in 1985. I was sharing a room with Morris, but I don't think it's about him.
On that song you sound seriously deranged -- like you're coming unhinged.
Well, I probably was into it. But then, a lot of people just thought that I wanted to be. Some people said that it sounded like a cut-rate Syd Barrett. There's some good lines that didn't get in there, and some silly ones that
stayed. "Next time 'round I'll be a trout" -- that whole part just makes it
too much of a silly kids' song. The stuff about my mother is good. "The
organism rapes itself" is a good line. I'm glad I wrote that.
Why are people so awkward about discussing sex and sexuality?
Because the genitals are located right next to the anus. A kid is brought up to feel that that whole area is in some way dirty. So people forever associate sex with punishment. If we had all our sex organs at the other end of the body, I think we wouldn't mind so much.
If you were a breakfast food, what would you be?
[Addressing Maisie] If you were a breakfast food, what would you be?
Maisie: Count Chocula. What about you?
Robyn: I don't think I'm really a cereal at all. I'm more like a--
Maisie: Grapefruit.
Robyn: A grapefruit, 'cause I look nice but I taste funny.
Discuss the song "Queen Elvis".
That song isn't about coming out, either. I could imagine Morrissey singing it. It's about a dead star, but not about a star death. "Queen Elvis" is my "Ziggy Stardust" (but I couldn't be bothered to make a whole persona out of it).
What do you eat, and why?
Maisie: You eat an awful lot of everything.
Robyn: Yeah, I eat an enormous amount of everything, 'cause I'm a big person--
Maisie: With an oral fixation.
Robyn: I need to put things in my mouth.
Are you a smoker?
I smoke at night sometimes -- usually when I'm drinking. The two go together. They're a pair of ugly sisters: tobacco and alcohol.
If you could change three things about the world, what would they be?
I would like to reverse the Industrial Revolution -- back to the Stone Age, maybe just the 18th century -- so the way we get our power would change. The fact that our electricity comes from oil, coal, and nuclear power -- which tend to destroy things. I would like to reverse the discovery [of] tobacco. If you do that, you knock out a lot of things pretty fast. I would give people the ability to travel back and forth through time.
Wouldn't that disrupt the time stream?
Without the process that we call "time", everything happens at once. If you had time travel, all time would be simultaneous. We could give everybody telepathy instead of the ability to travel through time.
That would interfere with communication skills.
We wouldn't need communication skills if we could see things as other people saw them.
Wouldn't we suffer a sensory overload -- from too much information?
You'd have to have a compartment that you could let people into, otherwise they could see everything you didn't want them to know. Or you might send them mental images you might not want them to know -- about their mother (or something). [Addressing Maisie] Would you rather have telepathy or time travel?
Maisie: Time travel. If you had mental telepathy -- and a part of your mind you couldn't get into -- then you'd have a new type of crime, where people tried to get inside.
Robyn: Brainrape.
How much control do we have over our own destinies?
I think maybe the problem is how much control do we have over other people's destinies. Considering how labyrinthine things are, and the world is one enormous domino effect, people are all where they are as a result of each other. Yet people seem to intuitively seek out their own fate.
Do you structure your own life, or trust the whims of chance?
I just stay exactly where I'm put (unless there's a slope, and then I'll roll downhill).
Do you find a strong affinity for the plant, or animal, kingdom?
I would say I find them attractive. There are plants and animals that are far more attractive than humans. Until quite recently, I was quite upset that I had to be human -- that I hadn't been a crocodile or a mongoose or a rat. The good thing about humans is they can appreciate plants and animals. There are some incredibly beautiful things out there, and it's our job to go and look at them. It's nothing perverse. I used to think it used to be more perverse -- but I used to feel more cut off from things.
From people?
No, things. I used to think, "If only I was on some drug, I'd really be able to appreciate that sunset." But it wasn't the case -- it just isolated me more. Now, if I'm on the beach, I think, "I'm a part of this." I just have a slightly different shape from the rock and the sand. I really like that...belonging.
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