‘I was a self-centred, entitled little horror... arguably I still am’: cult psych rocker Robyn Hitchcock talks to Stewart Lee
Armed with a new album inspired by ‘dead English blokes’, the revered musician discusses writing nasty songs about his neighbours and how he’s finally made
Armed with a new album inspired by ‘dead English blokes’, the revered musician discusses writing nasty songs about his neighbours and how he’s finally made it in Nashville aged 73 ‘I owe a lot to a dead man’s cock.” So begins the first song, a propulsive piece of Lennonesque powerpop called I Am This Thing, on The Confuser, the latest album by the 73-year-old English gentleman survivor of the 60s/70s frontline, Robyn Hitchcock.
The album has been recorded by a crack team of session guys in Nashville, where Hitchcock lives and runs a boutique record label with his second wife, the Australian singer-songwriter Emma Swift. “I’m not just some sort of old public school dilettante floating around the South Bank or whatever,” Hitchcock protests, unbidden.
“Making it work in Nashville means I actually am a real musician songwriter in the real musician songwriter town. And I think, ‘OK, I actually did do this!’ I wanted to go to Nashville when I, as a 13-year-old boarding school boy, heard those Dylan records he made here.
And a mere 60 years later, here I am!” Continue reading...
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