Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians paid their respects with the lush sonic landscapes and sweeping somber sillyness of their psychedelic swan song. After the commercial success of the slick 'Perspex Island', Hitchcock was ready to try a new approach; so he did the album at his house on the Isle of Wight: "I've never really cared much for going in and recording in the studio, so it seemed like the easiest solution was to have the studio come to record with us. We had rehearsed quite a bit at my house in the summer and were really comfortable with it, so we found a way to set up a mobile recording studio out by the house. It's a rather big house, so we had everyone stay over -- Morris, Andy, their wives, family, friends, assorted travelers -- so I thought it was all quite good. Most of it was actually recorded in the living room, where we'd pulled up all the carpets, polished the old floors, with all the furniture temporarily dwelling in the garage. The vocals were done in the kitchen, where the acoustics are quite nice. It worked well, with the kettle and everything as a distraction, but we often had to unplug the fridge because it was making a bit of a racket. So, we'd eat our meals over at the pub and use the kitchen for breakfast. The album is Respect to my father and John Lennon, because they're both dead men with glasses. And great influences, of course...You can't get away from the dead. I suppose I often dwell on death, especially my own death, because it's the last thing we're ever going to do. Whatever else there is to do, you better do it first -- you could go to Kathmandu, you could have a sex change or two, you could spend your precious time ballooning -- but whatever happens, you're gonna die. Death is something we all have in common, even though people often prefer to think that one can separate oneself from others, like "Oh, these aren't our kind of people," but wherever you hide, death has got to find you. There's sort of a democracy in death. Rich corpse, poor corpse, black corpse, white corpse. We all get our final mandatory chance to vote."
The sessions were produced by John Leckie with Robyn Hitchcock on vocals, guitar, harmonica, phone calls, and vocal bass drum; Andy Metcalfe on harmonies, bass guitar, keyboards, computer, water jug, wine glasses, and harmony serpent guitar; Morris Windsor on harmonies, digital drums, percussion, cheese grater, sauce and frying pans, and acoustic 12-string; with Roddy Lorrimer on trumpet; Bill Lyons on shawm; and the Electra Strings: Sonia Slany on 1st violin, Ann Wood on 2nd violin, Jocelyn Pook on viola, and Caroline Lavelle on cello. Hitchcock admits: "My idea was to put a microphone in a bowl of fruit, and have Morris, Andy and I sitting around the table playing, because it was the kitchen that I always used to write songs in. These were the guys that I'd always played with, and we'd rehearsed the songs on the bus on tour in the States, and we'd done a lot of radio shows with Morris shaking coke cans as maracas, Andy with an acoustic bass and me with an acoustic guitar. I thought it was a very organic band sound. But what ended up happening was that we recorded the basic thing at my house and then took it away; lots of keyboards appeared and digital drum sounds got in there and I started playing electric guitar on the overdubs, which I wasn't going to do at all - there was meant to be no electric guitar on the record. I think it's alright as a record but it wasn't really as intimate as I wanted. I don't think it sounded organically like the band, it just sounded like some songs with various overdubs on them. Paul Fox did 'Perspex Island' and most of that was the band with the traditional guitar, bass, drums. Peter Buck was playing extra guitar on most songs. That was cut live with the two guitars, bass and drums and the voices were dropped in afterwards. But I think it was over-mixed and slightly over-produced. If we'd stopped playing with it earlier, it would have been a more essential record...What people seem to like about me is intimacy. When I produce something like 'Perspex Island', they feel short-changed because I sound further away. That's why I did the EP. We just recorded three songs in a day on the eight-track, used reverb and mixed it onto quarter-inch tape. It was all very old-fashioned. We did two songs upstairs, and the someone wanted to cook in the kitchen so we had to move downstairs to the basement."
'Respect' never saw distribution in the UK and didn't sell well in the US. It marked the end of the Egyptians and his relationship with A&M Records. Hitchcock says that the extended recording process resulted in a mix that left him unsatisfied: "I like the material, but I think the result was so far from the intention. You can’t even hear my voice, really. It’s just sort of… I was coming and going a lot. I was going all over the place, at a bit of a fascia, a fault line in my life. I was going back and forth across the Atlantic all the time, and I wasn’t really properly focused on how it came out. I think also when people make records in two months and they’re in there all the time, you lose sight of what’s there because you’re going in every day. I only make records now spending two or three days maximum on something. Usually, I’m paying for myself, anyway, so I can’t afford to block-book studio time…but I don’t really enjoy it when it’s block-booked. I always remember going in the first time I did demos I paid for myself, and I just couldn’t wait to go in and spend that day...and the early days for making stuff for the indie Soft Boys record. 'You’ve got two days, man! Two days to do six tracks!' And that really mattered. By the time you’ve come to making some record where they’re giving you enough money that you could buy a row of houses in North Umbria or somewhere, I mean, it’s just…I don’t know. What does it matter if you spend a week on a song, or a day or a month? I know that malaise affects other groups, so I thought 'Respect'...not to diss the playing on the original, which I thought was great – somewhere underneath all of that, there’s some great three-part stuff – but I never listen to that. I don’t think of my stuff...I don’t know if it’s rated or not. I don’t listen to my records, either, because there’s too many of them, so apart from checking something for reference, I haven’t heard any of them now for ages. I really enjoyed the 'Moss Elixir' sessions because I had a little bit of a budget and I was in complete control of all of that; I think the songs on Respect are probably better, but I really like the feel of the songs on 'Moss Elixir'. I mean, 'Spooked', the last time I heard it, sounded great. I always like that; I don’t know if it’s rated or not, though."
http://www.robynhitchcock.com/
"The Yip Song" — 3:08
"Yeah, we did have a small dog, many years ago. My girlfriend at the time had a small dog. And in fact, her mother had another small dog, a bit later. And I used to say "yip" to the dog a lot -- the dog used to yip when it wanted to go in or out. And we had another one that used to yip when it wanted to go up or down. You know, it would come up three flights of stairs, and then it would yip at the top of the stairs because it wanted to get back down again. It was called "Yipper". That's pretty much what that song came from...was actually small dogs. But it's not about small dogs. It's about, actually, people consenting to a useless operation designed to prolong someone's life for an extra few weeks -- while they in their delirium imagine this woman, Vera Lynn, who was "The Forces' Sweetheart". She was like the Axl Rose of her day, you know? And he, sort of, tried to call out to this image...in his pain, as he's passing away, being destroyed by something. And all these voices are, kind of, saying, 'Yeah, surgery would be a good idea. Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip.' But, you know, originally the song was nothing to do with that at all. It was "Vera Lynn, Vera Lynn/She played Punk Rock with her fin". And I imagined Vera Lynn as having this enormous great black, kind of, shark's fin on her back. That she used it to strum some, sort, of Les Paul guitar as if she was cleaning her back with a guitar in the bathtub. Just stroking this guitar back and forth across her fin. And somehow all these, sort of, Punk-y chords would be coming out."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKXHBR75L08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBqn8RYIHCU
"Arms Of Love" — 4:19
"It was originally called "Arms Of God". I had it in mind for Roger McGuinn, in fact. R.E.M. have done a, sort of, Country version of it (but they've changed the chords slightly). And that had wine glasses on it -- it has Andy playing wine glasses. We actually had a bunch of wine glasses on the BBC Mobile -- 'cause we recorded it on the BBC Mobile, and the BBC came in and put the mics on the kitchen table (like we have here). And Andy just put his moistened finger around the circles of each wine glass top. That's what that sound is, anyway, at the beginning. The best thing about it is that as I was writing it, I suddenly realized that I didn't have to spend as long getting from one chord to another as I thought. It would been a really slow, sort of, waltz thing. But in fact I've managed to skip from one chord to another quite fast, so it's quite a concise tune. I mean, I like the tune. And the good thing about it is it hasn't good very many words (and I keep forgetting them, and I always change them each time I sing it). I changed it from the "Arms Of God" because that was too much like being about to be dead. But the idea is that the two people in the song are seperated, and soon they will be in the arms of love. But will it be in each other's arms? "Don't worry, honey. You'll soon be..." Back with me? Back with somebody else? What? You don't know. So it could be ultimate reassurance, and it could be your worst fears being confirmed. Either way it'll be quite exciting, and probably rather sad. (Well, it wouldn't be sad if you got back together again)."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC6-gG0dqvk
"The Moon Inside" — 4:28
"I think it's about the power inside a woman: it's lunar, it's tidal. It's just...as the menstrual cycle is linked -- amazingly enough -- to the passage of the moon (as are, I think, the activities of crabs). And I've never understood why a full moon is powerful. Because life on earth has evolved with the moon. There is now a moon inside of us. If a woman went off to Alpha Centauri (or something like that) she would still menstruate in twenty-eight day cycles. At least to begin with. And probably if you took a bunch of crabs and put them on Pluto (or something) in a huge salt-water tank, they would initially act in synch with the way the moon affected crabs on Earth. So we've got that lunar element inside of us. And I specifically link it with...this particular song has to do with passion, if you like: the way quite unexpected feelings can come up in people. Just as the sea has all kind of moods. The sea can caress you. The sea can break your neck. The sea can be treacherous. The sea can buoy you up and keep there. The sea can pull you down and finish you forever. The sea is your mother. The sea is potentially your assassin. We supposedly come out of the sea. Maybe if the world ever, sort of, chokes on its own vomit, the sea will be the last place to be terminally polluted. There must be huge great things down there the size of cathedrals. Kind of, buried feelings, right at the bottom where we can't see. I think this is all just related to the moon inside: as the hidden, the unexplained, the uncontrollable forces of the sea (which, again, are controlled by the moon)."
"Railway Shoes" — 3:35
"Well, "Railway Shoes" isn't on, actually...it's not a term. You know, it's not like...we don't say "Gol-blimey, mate, put yer railway shoes on, guv," back in the Old Country (or anything). It's..."Railway Shoes" is...I was just sitting in the shed in the garden, playing the guitar, and out came the expression "Railway Shoes". I like a title. If you've got a title it's much easier to work from: "The Moon Inside", "Railway Shoes". They all existed as titles and tunes before they became fleshed into anything definite. I was trying to sound like Richard Butler from The Furs, really. [Chuckles] It's made to sound like Richard Butler trying to be Van Morrison (which is an unholy combination, I think). But my skills as a mimic are obviously waning. [Laughs] No, I was gonna ask...we didn't have time to ask people to come and play on the record. But I was thinking of asking Richard to come and sing on "Railway Shoes". I can just hear him on the chorus: [In a raspy, Richard Butleresque voice] "Railway shoes!" You know, that kind of thing."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v7VWnYigqA
"When I Was Dead" — 3:34
"There are different versions of "When I Was Dead" floating around. There's a dubbed version, which has got a lot more space in it. Morris is shaking a bag full of rats' feet -- rats' toenails, I think -- and that's what the percussion is. It's all these things going 'shhhk-a-shhhk-a-shhhk'. It's not a wide-open space, this song. Death could equally well be the wide-open spaces. I mean we've made it sound very claustrophobic. You know, when the Devil asks him to supper and then God says he's got all his records, this is obviously happening in a small room -- in a cave, by candelight. The corpse is still in a small room lit by candles. They've put some perfume on the corpse to stop its smelling. The mourners are standing around, and they can't communicate with the dead person. And the dead person can't communicate with the mourners. All the dead person can see is god and the devil who've turned up instead, while Aunt Edith and Cousin Aileen are standing there weeping pitiously by the corpse and strewing the ground with lilies. So, again there's a communication gap between the living and the dead. Given the existence of a universe, all the molecules in it -- nuclear fission apart, and black holes -- have been here for...for billenia (or something). They just keep juggling around. So, you know, you've got three of Shakespeare's molecules, and you've got two of Himmler's (or whatever it is). Part of your fingernail was part of St. Joseph of Aramathea's frontal lobe (or something). And large parts of you were once a daffodil in...Novia Scotia (or something). And [Chuckling] your feet used to be Winston Churchill (or whatever it is). The same things keep getting recycled. It could be that when we pass away, our psyches dissolve into lots of, sort of, strips of feeling. All the things that comprise us that are held together by our bodies dissolve. Hence: 'I wasn't me to speak of/Just a thousand ancient feelings'. Feelings that have been around since the beginning of human time."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXZaiX5CwQE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7hGlyhO-V8
"The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee" — 3:29
"I was listening to a lot of stuff by Love -- which was Arthur Lee's group, back in the '60s -- when I was in L.A., making a previous album. I thought, "God, I must try writing more songs where they keep jumping." All these different movements, like they used to do in the '60s a lot. Sort of, having three-minute songs with loads of different movements in them. "I must write some more jumpy stuff with lots of chords in," like a lot of Arthur Lee's songs were. And I came back, got drunk...I had jetlag so I woke up about three or four hours with a hangover and there was nothing to eat in the house. But I was wide awake, and the sun was streaming through the windows, and it was July. And I was suddenly back in England. And I picked up the guitar and made up "The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee". As you said, it probably doesn't need explaining. [Laughs]"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXvgH7OKwTk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiC72MVW-jQ
"Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)" — 3:59
""Driving Aloud" is a very...impacted song. It's the most like the songs I used to write (on the record) in terms of being impenetrable, or obstruse (or something). Not many songs by anyone refer to Harrison Ford. I mean, Harrison is not generally a much sung-about person. It was originally called "Driving To Portland". I wrote it in the back of the bus -- as I was sitting with a cup of tea and a guitar -- trying to sing in a key that was high enough for me to hear myself over the engine of the bus. And I was playing this riff that I had made up in the shed at the same time I'd made up "Railway Shoes". And I wrote the words. I mean, I wrote six or seven verses. And I kept verses one, two, and five (or something). And then, later, after we'd recorded it, I rushed back and wrote a whole lot of extra verses which we had pressed up and then demolished again. So there's a completely different version of the song lying around somewhere -- with a load of yet more verses -- on a completely unrelated topic. But...the idea was, basically, momentum. If you were talking out the window of a bus -- or a slow-moving vehicle -- to somebody, and somebody asked you a question, and you reply. But you're replying not to the person who asked you that question but to another person, who then asks you another question, to which you reply, but that doesn't reach the questioner. It's a series of completely dislocated conversations held together by extreme anxiety, indecision, and a feeling of something ominous about to happen up the road."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVMRUdnMTaA
"Serpent At The Gates Of Wisdom" — 4:09
"I was talking to Julian Cope (who knows about these things). The serpent is generally a symbol of wisdom as much as a symbol of deceit. The serpent is a symbol of knowledge. I mean, it is the serpent that gives Eve the apple. The idea in my song is that the serpent is guarding wisdom. He's guarding it like a, kind of, reverse Garden Of Eden. But the serpent can't go in. Just as I don't know whether the angel that guards the gates of Eden -- and who drove Adam and Eve from the gates -- is actually allowed into Eden himself. Or itself. 'cause we don't know what sex angels are. Hopefully, both. Actually, the idea of a whole load of, kind of ,she-male angels is fantastic. All, sort of, standing there. You can imagine Madonna would suddenly burst out of a cardboard box, lured by the presence of such androgyny (which has nothing to do with this song). It's the one on the record I think of as the least "Robyn Hitchcock-y". I wrote the song almost as a take-off of The Band. I imagined Rick Danko doing the lead, and the other two coming in. And in the absence of The Band, we had to do it ourselves."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQHDKcydAyk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHo4Q-Zv-c
"Then You're Dust" — 2:30
"I just sang this song, "Then You're Dust". I was just singing it as I was walking around. Just literally a description of what was happening. You know, it was like a children's picture (or something). That song is totally at face value. It is about one thing and one thing only. I don't usually write those, sort of, minor key things. They're a bit dreary. But it just seemed appropriate. And I think we did that around the kitchen table, actually. Morris and I just sat there with acoustics, and I sang it live. It's like a lot of simple things: it's great because it's simple. All it is is what it appears to be."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlTAmlk7QLU
"Wafflehead" — 4:03
"The nice thing about "Wafflehead" is that it hasn't got any instruments on it. It's also Captain Beefheart. Beefheart had a song called "Hothead", which this is a, sort of, distant cousin of: [Doing a Beefheart imitation] "She can burn you up in bed/Just like she said/'cause she's a hothead". And...mine is a much more leisurely song. It's been quite a serious record. I just felt that it was good to have something that was completely just-for-the-hell-of-it at the end. That wasn't going to close the whole thing with a, sort of, "Now our hands our folded together in prayer for those we have thought of." Plus, if you just had "Then You're Dust", then there's not much else to do. Either it's the Heavenly Choirs or it's back down to earth, Thump!, and the wheel of Karma starts again. So "Wafflehead" is just, you know...is just a love song couched in terms of food -- which is something I've been doing for years. It's like things I've been writing for ages. It's a, sort of, parody of a Robyn Hitchcock song. But it's nice because Morris has a...uh...Morris started mooing. He does this, sort of, "Ooooooooooooohhhhhhh". And we just, sort of, made up this cycle of harmonies to go around it. The final mix...it doesn't come out that clearly, but we've got a version of it with a mock French lead vocal: [With fake-ish French accent]: "You're a Wafflehead/The sea of cream is what I beam/Into her as her eyeballs gleam". Kind of like Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau. And it's got all the Rs. We just, sort of, developed this, sort of, spiral of voices. And we filled up...Andy poured water in stereo between two tracks in a jug. We went down to the beach to try and sample some squelching noises. I had my gumboots on. And Morris plays a cheese grater. And I got to sing the bass drum part. We didn't even sample it. I just went [Makes repeated popping noise with mouth] for four minutes. And I take a gulp every eight bars. You know, so...we had fun. I'd really like to do more things like that."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FozwhEvWjYk
'Respect'
full album:
"The Yip Song" — 3:08
"Arms Of Love" — 4:19
"The Moon Inside" — 4:28
"Railway Shoes" — 3:35
"When I Was Dead" — 3:34
"The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee" — 3:29
"Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)" — 3:59
"Serpent At The Gates Of Wisdom" — 4:09
"Then You're Dust" — 2:30
"Wafflehead" — 4:03
'Spectre'
full album:
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