Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift: Sweet Home Quarantine Week 7

The one and only Robyn Hitchcock!

The 7^th week of Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift’s at home concert series, titled “Sweet Home Quarantine,” aired through the Stageit website on April 29, 2020. This week didn’t have a theme, it was just the songs of Robyn Hitchcock. The show opened with “Uncorrected Personality Traits,” one of Robyn’s most humorous songs, from his 1984 album I Often Dream of Trains. I’ve been a fan of Robyn Hitchcock’s music since I first discovered him in 2007/2008, and I really love hearing him sing with Emma Swift—she brings something slightly different out of his music. It’s fun to hear Robyn vocally paired with someone else, and it brings more variety to his songs. 

Continuing with the Beatles theme of week 6’s show, Robyn and Emma sang “Help!” which of course really needs two vocalists to work as a song. The next tune was “So You Think You’re in Love,” which I don’t think I’ve ever heard Robyn sing in concert. “So You Think You’re in Love” might not be Robyn’s most famous song, but it’s the closest he’s come to having a hit single, as the song made it to number one on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart. (It didn’t make the Hot 100, though.) It was fun to hear, and a reminder of how catchy Robyn’s songs can be. After that, Robyn played two of his most well-known songs, “Madonna of the Wasps,” and “Balloon Man.” Robyn commented that “Balloon Man” was a satire of capitalism, and he noted the irony that it’s made more money for him than any other song. “Balloon Man” is a catchy, surreal pop song that was many people’s gateway into the universe of Robyn Hitchcock.

Next up was “Trouble in Your Blood,” a track from 2014’s The Man Upstairs. Robyn joked that it was about his most recent divorce. Well, I’m not sure if he was joking or not. See, that’s the problem with getting into any musical artists after the Beatles. Because we know so much about the Beatles, I can practically tell you, “Oh yes, John Lennon had a roasted turkey sandwich right before he did the lead vocal on ‘A Day in the Life’!” But that spoils you, because then you expect to know EVERYTHING! “But what kind of hair gel was Nick Lowe using when he was producing Elvis Costello’s High Fidelity??? I need to know!” So then things like, “How many times has Robyn Hitchcock been married?” become difficult questions to answer. 

Robyn reached way back for the next song, “Rain,” from 1982’s Groovy Decay. He then played “Heliotrope,” from one of my favorite albums of his, 1996’s Moss Elixir, which was definitely one of my own gateways into Robyn Hitchcock. Next up was “Brenda’s Iron Sledge,” from his very first solo album, Black Snake Diamond Role, released in May 1981, just a month after I was born. Robyn followed that with “I Want to Tell You About What I Want,” from his most recent album, released in 2017. Then we got a minute or so of “You and Oblivion” as the time ran out.