Robyn Hitchcock

What they have in common is friendship and a love of the absurd.

It's Robyn Hitchcock and Eugene Mirman.

Now, Hitchcock came to prominence nearly 50 years ago as co-founder of British band The Soft Boys, whose 1980 album Underwater Moonlight is rightfully considered an all-time classic by music fans everywhere.

It was a stated influence by bigger bands that came right after, including R.E.M. and The Replacements.

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Thanks for listening to the TalkHouse podcast.

And thanks to Eugene Mirman and Robyn Hitchcock for chatting.

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Counting down the chart, at 20, that new entry from Izzy Walsh, Where Do We Go From Here? At 19, Robin Hitchcock is The Confuser.

At 18, Catherine Pretty warns us about these frightening machines.

At 17, Eleanor Moss with The Knife, The Needle.

You're listening to WGXC 90.7 Acro, the Wayfarm radio for open ears.

That was the lovely sound of Robyn Hitchcock, one of my favorite musicians, songwriters, eccentrics, and now a book author.

You're listening to Reading is Fundamental.

It is a monthly show that talks about books about music.

And sometimes we interview great musicians and, Today it's Robyn Hitchcock, the brilliant British songwriter, eccentric, and like I said, now author.

We're going to be talking about his second book, which is fantastic as his first book was.

His first book was called 1967, and it was all about that definitive year when he discovered everything that made him the man he is today and the artist he is today.

So without further ado, I should mention this is the second time he is our first returning champion to Reading is Fundamental, which you can find here, again, on WGXC, live at 10 a.m. every second Wednesday.

I still do because I'm old.

so yeah i'm gonna go to you know i really started appreciating english singer-songwriters at the time like i was listening to a lot of robin hitchcock and i was uh you know listening to billy bragg and things around that in 96 and i discovered neil hannon and divine comedy uh almost by accident they had a record called casanova And it's got Something for the Weekend on it, which is probably the biggest pop hook song on there.

But also the song that really got me hooked was In and Out of Paris and London, which is also fun.

But the song that sort of made that, made them and made that record was Songs of Love, which is just really catchy and pretty.

Oh, yeah.

And Neil Hannon's got a very sort of witty sense of humor.

You know, if you're a fan of like XTC or Robin Hitchcock or things like that, he's kind of in that sort of vein of like melody and stuff.

But I really like what the record does with creating pop hooks and just the musical arrangement on it is a little more it's more.

She was weird, but in a really cool way and in a way that made me feel comfortable.

She was into cool bands like Bauhaus and the Smiths and Robin Hitchcock and stuff like that.

She even lived in the Gothic dorm, by the way.

You know, it seemed like it was a place that was filled with the vampires of the school.

who doesn't love the boreo for

it's more william's mom that i have issues with so william's mom becomes the jealous forest queen like what is she jealous of having sex with the boy i don't know uh and the villainous rake add to the conflict in the album story arc so fun fact sean you're gonna love this robin hitchcock plays guitar on one of the songs called interlude i thought you'd like that because i know you're a robin hood

scott yeah i'd like the and the egyptians yeah and uh when he was just by himself yeah i remember dude i

remember when we were young okay and then to give you an example of just how different this album is compared to the previous songs that we've heard let's hear a bit of a bauer scene okay

Yeah, that would make it for me.

I mean, Robin Hitchcock is probably the songwriter I'm the most envious of.

Really? I saw you perk up when I told you I was able to see him at a house show recently.

Quite a storyteller, I will say.

Again, I was discussing the same thing with some guy, with a friend of mine, like two days ago.

And he sent me an article and it talked about all the different songwriters that had also submitted songs for that film and you were in good company i was amazed yeah it was like you know robin hitchcock and yeah but this is the stuff that happens you know like when when they're making a movie like or this is how they used to do it they when they're making a movie they'd get you know 50 songs in order to wind up with five or six you know

yeah

so with the walk hard i won the lottery but uh anyway That is showbiz.