Consumable Online
July 29, 1999
Interview: Robyn Hitchcock
by Rey Roldan
The world of British Avant-Pop god Robyn Hitchcock consists of surrealistic landscapes occupied by balloon men, wasps, antwomen...and, as of now, cheese. And lots of it.
Apparently a connoisseur of pasteurized curd, Robyn felt so compelled by it that he wrote "The Cheese Alarm" (from his new album Jewels For Sophia), which chronicles the tale of an addict who is compelled to gorge on every cheese he can find. Unfortunately, he forgot one.
"There's one that I don't mention, which is the 'Queen Cheese'. It's a cheese called mimolette," he says from his London home. "It's the cheese before which we are most powerless. It's a French cheese from up towards Belgium and Holland. It's got Dutch elements in it, especially the way it fits into that round globe that many cheeses do. It's a red-orange cheese...the color of a flaming sunset."
It's a regret that Robyn can't seem to forget. The omission occupies a lot of his idle time. "I should've put it in [the song] and I don't quite know why I didn't. I couldn't quite find a good rhyme that could fit in there," he continues. "I was going to write, 'Ah, mimolette with your red, melon grin' but I just couldn't find the line that would go with it. It was going to end with something like '... the shape that I'm in", but it just didn't. I often sit there and try to make up the phantom line with mimolette in it. I guess I'll have to save it for the remixes of this track," he laughs.
Jewels For Sophia is a departure from his recent slate of somber albums, including 1989's Queen Elvis, 1991's Perspex Island and 1996's Moss Elixir. With its up-tempo guitars and bouncy percussion, Jewels For Sophia harkens earlier work like 1988's Globe Of Frogs and even 1981's Black Snake Diamond Role, his solo debut after the breakup of his seminal late-'70s/early-'80s band The Soft Boys.
"[Jewels For Sophia] is the most upbeat record I've done in years," he explains. "In fact, it's got a lot more guitars on it than Globe Of Frogs did. Globe Of Frogs was mostly me with Peter Buck [of R.E.M.]
contributing guitar to a number of songs. This one's got Peter, Tim Keegan, Grant-Lee Phillips [of Grant Lee Buffalo] on harmonies, and Jon Brion [who produced the album]. I was trying to reach further back to Black Snake Diamond Role. I wanted to make something that was less somber and a bit more confident."
With that in mind, Robyn succeeds big time. The guitar-driven "Viva Sea-Tac" (a paean to the Northwestern corner of the U.S. -- Seattle and Tacoma) revisits early-'80s Melodic Punk with Peter Buck's electric 12-string swerving in and out of Robyn's guitars. The meandering acoustic guitar of "Mexican God" skips along to his sordid tale of gore and bloodshed and crushed babies.
But it's the love songs that stand out. Unlike most sappy songs of romance, Robyn's take sinister twists and turns, walking a thin line between beauty and disgust. "You've Got A Sweet Mouth On You, Baby" begins its focus on his lover's sensuality -- her "golden tongue", how her "lips are like a butterfly" -- but then turns into a song of sinister desire and loss ("I embraced you in my coffin/And I haven't seen you since").
"Well, I think it's the thin line to walk," he explains. "It's easier [to walk that line] than to walk the line between life and death -- although that's probably more intriguing. 'You've Got A Sweet Mouth' is a weird love song because the singer can't quite reach the woman he singing to. It's kinda like an unrequited love.
"Back when I was a kid, love songs repulsed me," he continues. "A few tastes that you learn to like as an adult -- tobacco, liquor, sex -- sometimes are disgusting when you were a kid. The idea that your sex organs, which basically is just used for waste products and a point of embarrassment as a kid and becomes a source of power, pleasure and god-knows-what as you grow older, is disturbing to a 12 year-old kid."
"These days, what I'm writing are 'tender songs', maybe not necessarily 'love songs', but songs of longing. When I was a little macho British boy, I always thought 'Eeeeeew, this is disgusting. It's too soppy,' (or whatever). But now, listening to Nat King Cole or Frank Sinatra no longer gives me the heebies."
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