Fate Forces Me to Post

In the past week, I have posted two comments linking to Robyn Hitchcock videos. Yesterday, Gavin M. at smart snark central posted a link to a Robyn Hitchcock video.

Robyn has, in one combo or other, been in the music business since the mid-to-late seventies. He writes gorgeous pop songs about, for the most part, grotesque subjects (Edgar Allen Poe would probably use the term "Arabesque"). His somewhat nasal vocals may take some getting used to, but he plays the guitar with a jangly virtuosity that is immediately accessible.

While there doesn't seem to be much of a market for pretty songs about crustaceans, disease, decay, and the like, Robyn has always had a dedicated cult following. If one distilled out the "normal" songs in Robyn's thirty-some-odd year career, one could probably put together a smash hit album, the sort of record that soccer moms and Dockers-wearing guys could listen to in the minivan while driving the kids around.

Here's Robyn at his prettiest (although there are a couple of trademark touches of grotesquerie in this lovely song, originally found on 1986's Element of Light album with backing band The Egyptians):





The sound in this video is not quite as good, but I am posting it as well, because *GLOATING* I was at this concert *GLOATING*.