Mickey in California very kindly sent me a copy of the Robyn Hitchcock cd, Queen Elvis (thanks again, Mickey!!). This is an album I listened to a fair bit many, many, many moons ago. I had a copy on tape, which subsequently vanished, as things do when you move out of home.
I remember liking the album a lot back then, but you know, now that I’ve heard it again, several times since it arrived on Monday, I realise things have changed. Oh, I don’t mean that I don’t like the album now – I definitely still do! – but I don’t know how to describe it, it’s as though I’ve gone back in time, but as a neutral observer. (I love how particular music can be so much a part of particular times in your life.)
I guess I’m trying to say that it makes me realise how much I have changed over the years. Reading Mooiness’s post I really relate to that realisation that you do settle into yourself and feel a lot more confident and happy to be who you are. Your priorities and outlook really do change, and nothing stays the same (even if you wish it would).
Back then I seem to remember that I thought that Robyn Hitchcock was really different, kooky even, but now, it just seems like an album full of slightly offbeat, rather whimsical, but beautiful tunes. It just makes me smile to listen to it.
Built of brick and made for an eternity;
Give an inch and take an inch and what you’ve got is where you were
the universe is based on sullen entropy
-It falls apart as it goes on
Yesterday I saw the Devil in the nude, it was embarrassing
-I turned away-
He was leering in the mirror when I looked again
Everything you say you won’t is what you will eventually
Honesty is money in the cemetery
If he treat you horribly he’s probably a Scorpio
He’s a long kebab through your ovaries
-The same goes out, the same goes in
Yesterday I saw the Devil in a mood. He wasn’t angry, but he stood around
Biting off the legs of all his furry chums
Probably it did so I remember it
You are just your feelings it might give you vertigo
Falling off a high place and into it
-Just as I fell into you
Yesterday I saw the Devil in my food. I wasn’t hungry,
But I played with it-
Blood red horns gouged through my scrambled (egg)
Yesterday I saw the Devil in my heart-I was expecting him
The doctor came-
I haave to call the doctor every time we kiss
The Devil’s Coachman – Robyn Hitchcock
Categories: reminiscence, music
4 Comments
Weird! Your feelings about going back in time as a neutral observer pretty much sum up how I feel about music from that period of my life, too.
Why is music like that?
I love…love…love listening to Kate Bush’s “The Whole Story”, but maybe only once a year or so. It brings me back to my high school days, specifically Junior college. Studying in my mother’s room (all the rooms in the house were air conditioned, but she had the biggest bed, therefore studying=relaxing), life felt so tough back then!!
Music is so much a part of our lives, isn’t it? I can’t imagine life without it!
I love that about music. Just listening to a particular track can take me back to being on a specific street on a specific early-evening and a particular time in my life, for instance… or another track can transport me to the dancefloor of Connections when i was 17 and had just discovered clubbing.