The first album from Robyn
Hitchcock I ever heard after I
bought the CD in 1988 is also the
last Hitchcock record added to
the collection on vinyl, the 2025 remixed
and remastered Globe of Frogs.
It remains today, I think, my favorite
Robyn Hitchcock record. “Tropical
Flesh Mandala” had about the strangest
lyric lines I had ever heard and “Balloon
Man” was equally absurdist and silly
but hooky as all get out. Quintessential.
As a young fan of British humor, Hitchcock
seemed to me the rock and roll Monty
Python. I’m not sure why this record
needed a remix. Some of the weirdness
has been “fixed” that didn’t need fixing,
a lot of its eighties-ness has been squeezed
out, but the record sounds fantastic and
the songs are as great as I remembered
them to be. It’s one of my all-time favorite
albums. After I discovered this record
as a young man I became pretty serious
about Robyn, and most of his records
pre-1988 and almost all of them post
Globe of Frogs are there in the CD
collection. Skip way ahead to 2014,
and here’s a quiet, mostly acoustic guitar
and voice performance of several key
cover songs and a few more original
tunes on The Man Upstairs. This is Hitchcock
at his most mellow and most serious.
There’s no absurd humor, no surrealism,
only a kind of reverent attention to stripped
down performances of some great songs
by The Psychedelic Furs, Bryan Ferry, The Doors,
Grant Lee Phillips, and our guy Robyn. It’s
a beautiful record that, right after Globe
of Frogs and almost three decades later,
provides a snapshot of Hitchcock’s range.
Robyn Hitchcock is friends with Peter Buck
from R.E.M. and R.E.M. released an album once
called “Eponymous,” which is funny, because
an eponymous album by R.E.M. should be called
R.E.M. I like the word eponymous and this next
album from Robyn is eponymously titled. It’s
2017 and we’re rocking again in Robyn’s eccentric
and absurdist way. These are great songs that
I barely remember and again I’m wondering why
I didn’t play this record a thousand times. Jangly
Byrds-like guitar pop at its very best, with odd nods to
country and blues and a return to the funny bone.
And then, proving that there might be a god, in
2019 two of my English pop heroes show up with
a collaborative E.P. called Planet England. Andy
Partridge from XTC and Robyn Hitchcock get
together in Andy’s recording shed to write songs
and the result is glorious. “Turn Me On, Deadman”
and “Flight Attendants, Please Prepare For Love”
on the first side alone are worth the price of
admission. Most of the lead vocal here is Robyn,
but those background vocals, and the guitar work,
those odd changes, so clearly echo XTC it’s not
even funny. “Got My. . .” is more of a duet between
the two, further solidifying the perfection of this
collaboration. It left me clamoring for a full
album. I’m still clamoring. So much clamoring.
Planet England: take me to your leader.
It was such a beautiful day today. I spent most of it
outside, doing little things around the yard, walking
the dogs, hanging out with my wife, and watching
the No Kings Protest news every once in awhile
on my stupid smart phone, but after about 3 o’clock
in the afternoon, I came inside and started spinning
Robyn Hitchcock records and writing this poem-
like-thing. It’s 8:00 in the evening right now, and I
am trying to decide if I should keep going.
I decide in the affirmative. “The Shuffle Man,”
the opening track on Shufflemania is a joyous
double-time punk rocker, complete with a trash
can ending. What follows is a wide variety of the
stuff that Hitchcock excels at: the jangly pop,
the psychedelic pop, the English-American
absurdist blues replete with ugly harmonica,
the folk pop song about Socrates drinking the
hemlock that would end his life, the funny
language play on “Noirer than Noir” and “One Day
(It’s Being Scheduled),” and a lyric turn like this
one: “Respect the dead. You will be joining them
soon.” This last album of new rock songs by
Hitchcock is a strong collection, a testament to his
longevity as a rock music master craftsman.
I never get tired of this guy. Has he ever made
a bad move? Maybe, for me, his voice, his lyrics,
his exquisite and eccentric vision conceptually,
is the thing that I buy into over and over.
Sadly, the last record I have of his on vinyl
is an album of instrumentals. Is it bad? No.
But does it have those inimitable Hitchcock
characteristics that I love so much? Not
really. Does it showcase, though, his abilities
as a musician, a guitarist, and not just a singer
with tons of character? Maybe. Yes. It is nice.
It’s somewhat meditative. It’s a totally different
animal than everything else he’s done.
Is it a record I want to listen to repeatedly? No.
I think, since I bought it about two years ago now,
I have listened to it twice. I can’t begrudge him
this experimentation, this excursion into a thing
he’s never done before. It’s admirable. But there’s
a new album coming out this summer of new
Hitchcock rock. I’m all in for that. I’m on board.
Notes on the vinyl editions:
- Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, Globe of Frogs, Tiny Ghost Records, 2025 remix and remaster of the 1988 original album, 180 gram, apple green vinyl.
- Robyn Hitchcock, The Man Upstairs, Yep Roc Records, 2014, black vinyl.
- Robyn Hitchcock, Yep Roc Records, 2017, black vinyl.
- Robyn Hitchcock and Andy Partridge, Planet England, Ape Records, 2019, 10 inch E.P., black vinyl.
- Shufflemania! Tiny Ghost Records, 2022, translucent orange vinyl
- Life After Infinity, Tiny Ghost Records, 2023, blue vinyl with purple swirl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 