Citybeat
July 8, 1999
He's So Unusual
Eccentric Singer-Songwriter Robyn Hitchcock Gracefully Copes With Autonomy, Aging, And The Release Of His 16th Album
by David Simutis
Robyn Hitchcock is one of those musicians who are (un)lucky enough to be frequently compared to Syd Barrett. For over 20 years Hitchcock has blended Rock and Folk with picturesque and psychedelic lyrics, much as the former Pink Floyd acid casualty did. Odd characters and semiautobiographical tales inhabit Hitchcock's songs. His dry wit peeks through, making the trip through his mind less off-putting. And like Barrett, he is an odd bird.
On his 16th solo record, Jewels For Sophia (to be released July 20), Hitchcock is joined by Peter Buck of R.E.M., a couple of members of the Young Fresh Fellows, Grant-Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo) and Jon Brion. The Englishman wanted to address the state of the world and other political topics, but he says he is just not equipped to do that. There are subtle ruminations such as, "Half the world starving and half the world bloats", on "The Cheese Alarm" but that line is surrounded by a cataloged list of various cheeses.
"I've got a lot of opinions -- socially and politically -- which surface at various times, but I can't seem to translate that into songs. If I do, it just comes out didactic. It's not very inspiring. Songs really do seem to have a mind of their own or a will of their own," he claims. "All I can do is decide whether to be receptive to the stuff that's coming through or not. The songs are all of me, but at times it seems as random to me as if I were a medium."
That's as good an explanation for his songwriting process as can be expected. This is, after all, a man whose song titles conjure up self-contained, imaginary (or drug-induced) worlds "My Wife And My Dead Wife", "The Shapes Between Us Turn Into Animals", and "Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl". It's hard to read too much into the lyrics, but on Sophia there are erotic love songs ("You've Got A Sweet Mouth On You, Baby"), aerospace fantasies ("NASA Clapping") and what seems to be a semi-sarcastic ode to the Seattle-Tacoma area ("Viva Sea-Tac"). In the latter song Seattle is praised for "the best computers and coffee and smack". Hitchcock laughs as the subject is broached.
"I've been involved with coffee -- I've never been involved with computers or heroin," he says dryly. "Those are things that certainly put the place on the map. That line is about the stereotypical view of the city. I'm holding that up, like a fish, for people to smell. I'm certainly not putting the place down. I love it."
In fact one-fourth of Sophia was recorded in the rainy city. He also worked in Los Angeles and London, doing piecemeal recording -- a couple of days at a time -- rather than holing up in one studio for a couple of weeks. Hitchcock says that he works best that way, when sessions are spaced out over time.
"You don't get the tunnel vision that you get when you're locked into three weeks or three months (or whatever) in the studio. You go in for two or three days at a time, and it's always fresh and exciting," he explains. "Otherwise you get blase. You start turning up late. You start knocking off early. You don't savor the fact that you're in a recording studio and how exciting that can be. I always like to feel like I'm a tourist in the recording studio, and it's a complete novelty for me, 'Ooh, what does that button do?'"
Though he approaches the studio like a novice, he has taken over the management aspect of his career because he's not new to the business. A self-admitted control freak, he's not interested in telling someone how he wants things done, and he's not about to take direction from someone with less knowledge. Hitchcock is a career musician, cutting his teeth in the late-'70s as a member of the influential Soft Boys, debuting as a solo artist in '81, and inspiring such bands as R.E.M., The Replacements and The Flaming Lips. Clearly he knows what he's doing -- at least artistically. His music has been available in America on a half-dozen labels, making a business manager seem like a necessity in chasing down royalty checks and the like.
But for the past 18 months, he has been overseeing the business of Robyn Hitchcock even as he has been taking care of being the artist. He compares using a manager to having someone cut his food, feed him, and wipe his mouth.
"There's this whole myth that the artist is something that has to be protected from everything and is supposed to sit around getting stoned or meditating and writing songs," he says. "The artist should not be troubled with the realities of business or practical life, and the artist is only approached through the manager -- that the manager is some sort of buffer -- or a conduit."
As for business cutting into artistic time, Hitchcock thinks he's got the best of both worlds, saving himself the 20 percent of income that a manager would earn and keeping him occupied while he waits for the songs to come calling.
"I don't think you need that much time to write songs," says Hitchcock. "If you're just sitting there, all you've got to do is write songs. Then you can translate that as, 'All you've got to do is have writer's block.' If there's nothing else you've got to do in the world except write a song, it's amazing how difficult it is to come up with one. But if you're writing songs incidental to just carrying on with living, then they [happen]. Songs appear anyway, you just have to decide if you're going to be receptive to them when they come through or not."
And he admits that the songs that appear to him have gotten mellower, agreeing that he feels more comfortable singing, and the songs, as a result, are less cluttered. For his part, Hitchcock recognizes the absurdity of trying to grow old gracefully as a rock-'n'-roller.
"I think the days of being a young alien are gone. When you're younger, your material tends to reflect how alienated you can be from everybody. But given that we're living in a society where everybody is as alienated as possible from everybody and that is the norm, really what are you expressing by saying, 'I don't belong with any of you guys'? Nobody does. So what? I'm hoping that my stuff is a bit warmer in that respect. I think [with] the new record, my mental health seems good, listening to it. I listened to [1985's] Fegmania! a couple of weeks ago, I didn't sound healthy.
"It's that thing that you can be an angry young man, but a petulant middle-aged one doesn't look so good," he continues. "So you have the choice of either you kind of mellow out and get boring, or you remain miserable like Bob Dylan and, sort of, stick to your adolescent guns. I think there are certain poses and things that you can't maintain. When you're younger you don't necessarily even realize that you're striking them. Especially in the Rock culture -- they're just poses that you tend to strike and they're befitting to younger people.
"I don't think anyone over the age of 40 with an electric guitar can possibly take themselves seriously," he finishes. "They certainly shouldn't."
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