(BHM) Robyn Hitchcock has released his new album, 1967: Vacations In The Past, an acoustic musical companion to his critically acclaimed new memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left (Akashic Books).
A 12-track collection comprising all-new versions of songs from and inspired by that epochal year, 1967: Vacations In The Past was heralded by Hitchcock's renditions of Small Faces' classic "Itchycoo Park," performed with longtime friend and musical companion Kimberley Rew, as well as the early Pink Floyd single, "See Emily Play."
1967: Vacations In The Past sees Hitchcock offering up his own distinctive takes on songs by Jimi Hendrix, Traffic, The Move, and others, milestone music which both redefined the shape of things to come and left an indelible mark on his own work as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Produced by Hitchcock with his longtime collaborator Charlie Francis (R.E.M., The High Llamas, Martin Carr) at studios in Sydney, Cambridge, Cardiff, and San Francisco, the album features auxiliary musical contributions from such friends as Kelly Stoltz, Kimberly Rew, guitarist Davey Lane (You Am I, The Pictures), and Lee Cave-Berry. Among its myriad highlights are stripped-bare takes on such ornate classics as The Beatles' "A Day In The Life," The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset," Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play," Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale," and fittingly, "Way Back In The 1960s" by The Incredible String Band.
"For me, 1967 was the portal between childhood and the adult world," says Hitchcock, "where these songs flickered in the air to greet me like hummingbirds. They're full of saturated color and melancholy, just as I was charged with hormones and regret as one part of me said goodbye to the other. Perhaps I peaked then - at the supernova of boyhood - the black hole of the grownup world awaited me with its dwarf-star mentality, all beige and hell and compromise.
"Forever after, I've wandered beneath the dayglo Waterloo Sunset and burned the Midnight Lamp, yearning for that time. A Whiter Shade of Pale, she's the wan ghost that haunts me in summer twilight, all the way down to the river where the specter of Emily plays, Ophelia-like, with strands of green waterweed. Look - they're full of dead minnows! See, now she's draping wet strips of it over her hair!
"By coincidence, the world was changing as fast as I was, and music embodied that change. The world grew hair, became infused with new desires and crawled out of its grey nest to test its fresh, multicolored plumage. We all crash eventually, but at least some of us take off first: if we are left only with sullen cravings and a sense of loss, well, so be it. 1967 is a phantom heart that glows inside me, lighting me up like a lamp on a good day. 'So long, Mum! Thank you, Dad! I'm off to infinity! Please leave my dinner in the oven.'"
Tracklist:
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Itchycoo Park
Burning of the Midnight Lamp
I Can Hear The Grass Grow
San Francisco (Flowers In Your Hair)
Waterloo Sunset
See Emily Play
My White Bicycle
No Face, No Name, No Number
Way Back In The 1960s
Vacations In The Past
A Day In The Life
Told with the inimitable wit, wisdom, wordplay (and original illustrations) fans have come to expect from this one-of-a-kind artist, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left is a singularly unique portrait of a bright, slightly awkward boy becoming a significantly taller young man, as both he and the black-and-white world around him blast off into an iridescent new future. Hitchcock details a truly epochal year via his own exceptional experience, expertly chronicling a life-changing, mind-blowing 12-month span that both redefined the shape of everything to come and left an indelible mark on his own work as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left begins as 13-year-old Robyn arrives at Winchester College, a 600-year-old boarding school in the South of England, away from his rather complex relationship with his rather complex family for the first time. Hitchcock is quite suddenly thrown into the bottom tier of a determinedly male hierarchical universe, a backdated realm of arrested academics still living in their monochrome past and hormone-addled teenaged boys teetering on the precipice of young manhood. Slowly and not entirely surely, he finds his way - and his place in this strange, peculiarly English, new world - through the strength of his humor, intelligence, and most importantly, an ever-increasing love of art and music.
With the help of his school's antiquated House Gramophone, Hitchcock hears sounds that had never been heard before, from the Earth-shaking appearance of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to the early songs of Bob Dylan, the latter of which shook him to his very core and undeniably shaped his own work and worldview forever to come. The secrets of the universe are soon revealed via encounters with a young (but already exceedingly Eno) Brian Eno and the electrified mayhem of Jimi Hendrix and the Pink Floyd, revelatory music that ultimately inspires him to play his first guitar and begin writing songs of his own. By 1967's end, the young Robyn Hitchcock is no longer a boy, still not quite a man, but undeniably, irrevocably different - slightly wiser, somewhat less innocent, and beginning to take shape as the band leader, master songwriter, and utterly original artist he would soon become.
"1967 is the point when I and the world went through the change," Hitchcock says. "It was all just blissful synchronicity as I grew nine inches in 15 months, just as Dylan was electrified and pop groups turned into rock bands. Arguably as much was lost as was gained, but at the same time, you had Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd and others producing music that couldn't have even been described three years earlier. You had The Beatles producing inaudible shows with tiny amplifiers wearing suits and ties, in many ways playing to the old rules of showbiz, and then suddenly up came Dylan with his thousand-watt PA and Jimi Hendrix with his Marshall stacks, and the whole thing erupted."
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