Knoxville News-Sentinel
February 23, 1997
Hitchcock's Songwriting Accent Shifts From Lyrics To Music
by Betsy Pickle
To look at Robyn Hitchcock's travel diary -- he toured major U.S. cities in November with Billy Bragg, and has just embarked on the first of two more invasive American treks -- and witness the rapport he has with his audiences, you'd think that performing live was everything to him. But no.
"I've always been quite nervous on stage, so it's a challenge playing live," says Hitchcock by phone from his London home. "I don't know if it's me or the material, but I don't find myself up there grinning.
"I feel like Dead Man Walking when it's time to go on stage. I mean, I get fantastic audiences sometimes, but it does tend to be a nervous experience. I do all this because it pays for me to write songs."
Hitchcock, who'll perform in an 8 p.m. show today at Flamingo's on Cumberland Avenue, has stayed at the forefront of off-kilter consciousness thanks to his songwriting skills. Wry, piercing, surreal and unexpected, his lyrics over the course of 15-odd albums sound like nonsense to some, genius to others.
Understandably, Hitchcock's craftsmanship and sensibilities have matured since his debut as frontman for The Soft Boys 21 years ago. And now, having retired his on-again, off-again band The Egyptians permanently in 1994, Hitchcock has entered a new era of evolution.
"The most important thing now for me, the thing I enjoy most, is coming up with a tune of some kind," he says. "Even the words don't matter as much as they used to."
The jaw drops, the mind boggles at the seeming heresy from the silver-tongued spiritual son of Monty Python and John Lennon. Etched even higher than the description "quirky singer-songwriter" in the eventual monument to Hitchcock would be the title "wordsmith".
"That's because when I went into it, I was," he says patiently. "I didn't know anything about music. I just yearned to be a musician, a cult figure. Someone who was respected but to the side of things.
"My weapon was words -- I was good with words -- but I couldn't really write tunes much. And very slowly over the years, I've learned to write tunes. As music's become more important to me, I've realized that words are less important, that words don't matter so much.
"Ideally, you get the right ones, but what really matters is the tune because that's what people whistle and hum, and that's what stays on their brain."
Hitchcock, who'll turn 44 on March 3, is fond of the catchy melodies of such bands as Radiohead and The Presidents Of The United States Of America.
"Stuff like that's very listenable," he says. "It doesn't hit me the way that The Doors or Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix hit me 30 years ago. But Rock 'n' Roll is a more obedient beast. It's being seen as a way of making a lot of money and keeping people ultimately in place while allowing them to let off a lot of steam....
"Broadly put, you could say the history of Rock 'n' Roll was the story of young men having their teeth pulled in exchange for huge sums of money. The only difference is now it's young women as well, which it wasn't so much 30 years ago."
Hitchcock's own musical history has been one of non-synchronization. The Soft Boys went against the Punk grain of their time, and while Hitchcock solo and with The Egyptians struck an occasional jangly chord with mainstream audiences, Grunge inevitably drowned them out.
Still, Hitchcock has his share of fans, among them film director Jonathan Demme. Demme, who put the Talking Heads on the big screen in Stop Making Sense, is doing the same for Hitchcock with a concert film titled Storefront Hitchcock created from performances in New York in December.
With his latest album, the critically acclaimed Moss Elixir which was released in August, Hitchcock feels he's starting anew.
"You're only as good as your latest song," says Hitchcock. "That's how I feel. I don't think there're any laurels to rest on.
"If anything, they're a go. If I did write some great songs 10 years ago or five years ago, why haven't I written anything good this week? It's a constant spur."
While Hitchcock prefers the leisurely pace of his current tour to the exercise in intensity he endured with Billy Bragg, that touring collaboration was something the two singers had wanted to attempt for years.
"I think we're very different," says Hitchcock, who shares the same manager with Bragg. "He's got a lot more red in him.
"I don't mean politically necessarily. But he's a much redder kind of person. I'm more of a dark-green, dark-purple kind of dude. I'm reflective, and he's active. I'm a dreamer, and he's a campaigner.
"We're both essentially left-wingers. It's just that he's much more overtly political than I am. And indeed writes great political songs, which very few people can do."
Political songwriting is beyond him, Hitchcock concedes.
"I've tried, but they just come out as preaching," he says. "'Margaret Thatcher is bad'. 'I'm not gonna like being bombed'. That sort of thing. I didn't have the knack for it. I can't write to-order."
He also can't re-order what he's written. He says there are songs he regrets writing.
"A lot of the, sort of, rather childish, psychotic ones," he says. "The Syd Barrett-y kind of things. Not that Syd wasn't a good influence in lots of ways. But things like 'Brenda's Iron Sledge' and 'Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl' are two, I think. Maybe 'So You Think You're In Love', for a different reason, because that was so bland.
"Things like 'Messages Of Dark'. Sort of, slightly misogynist, spoiled-child stuff. That's what I was, I suppose. I'm not too proud of those. But some of the old songs are great -- 'Queen Of Eyes' and 'Acid Bird' (and things) -- they're good."
While songwriting is his primary artistic outlet, Hitchcock has occasionally immersed himself in painting, and he is known for his artwork on his albums and tour T-shirts.
"I feel if there's going to be a T-shirt design or record cover design, it should be mine rather than someone else's," says Hitchcock. "I don't really want to be a vehicle for somebody else's artwork. And some of the T-shirts have been good.
"I, kind of, burned out on it actually. In fact, I'm selling cones -- I've completely forgotten to mention this in all these interviews. That's dreadful. C-o-n-e-s. Little orange ones. They're nine inches high.
"They're all gonna have a piece of artwork on them, and I think I may glue a sweet to the top -- 'a piece of candy', as y'all say. One of those things like a Tootsie Roll (or something). They're gonna be autographed. They're $5 apiece. I recommend them for any desk.
"I'm planning to phase T-shirts out and phase cones in. My contribution to the '90s."
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