Robyn Raymond Hitchcock (born 3rd March 1953) is an English singer-songwriter and psych folk guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. Many of Hitchcock’s album covers bear his paintings or drawings, and his albums’ liner notes sometimes include a printed short story. His live concerts usually include a considerable amount of story-telling, imaginative and surreal ad-libbed monologues in his lyrical style. He is the son of novelist Raymond Hitchcock and the brother of artist Lal Hitchcock.
He regularly does solo work, and returns again and again to bands he has formed like The Soft Boys and The Egyptians. Hitchcock is an avid and able collaborator with people like director Jonathan Demme, actor Alan Rickman, country/folk duo (and longtime Hitchcock fans) Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, The Venus 3, R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Young Fresh Fellows’ frontman Scott McCaughey, Andy Partridge of XTC, Nick Lowe, former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, Jon Brion, and Grant-Lee Phillips, as well as Ministry’s Bill Rieflin.
Hitchcock’s musical and lyrical styles have been influenced by his appreciation of Bob Dylan, Gregory Corso, The Byrds, Country Joe & The Fish, and Syd Barrett.
Hitchcock’s lyrics are an essential component of his work, and tend to include surrealism, comedic songs, characterisations of English eccentrics, plant roots, insects, trains, dreams, and melancholy depictions of everyday life. His themes include what many psychologists view as the roots of modern neurosis - namely, death, sex, and eating. (As if in recognition of these themes, he released an EP in 2007 called “Sex, Food, Death and Tarantulas”.) |
