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1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left
The great eccentric of British psychedelia—beloved by everyone from Led Zeppelin and R.E.M. to the late Jonathan Demme—pens a singularly unique childhood memoir . . .“Memoirists rarely begin their work with a stroke of genuine inspiration, and Robyn Hitchcock’s ingenious idea to limit his account of his life to the titular year gives this sharp, funny, finely written book an unusually keen, wistful intensity without sacrificing its sense of the breathtaking sweep of time. I absolutely adored every line of 1967 and every moment I spent reading it.” —Michael Chabon, author of Telegraph Avenue“1967 . . . in which our hero looks down from the future at his squeaky realm of boyhood, a world of Day-Glo sunsets, and would-be denizens of music and the mind. Cometh the year, cometh the groover.”—Johnny Marr, guitarist and co-songwriter of the How I Got There and Why I Never Left explores how that pivotal slice of time tastes to a bright, obsessive/compulsive boy who is shipped off to a hothouse academic boarding school as he reaches the age of thirteen—just as Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited starts to bite, and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band explodes.When he arrives in January 1966 Robyn Hitchcock is still a boy pining for the comforts of home and his family’s loving au pair, Teresa. By December 1967 he’s mutated into a 6'2" tall rabid Bob Dylan fan, whose two ambitions in life are to get really stoned and move to Nashville.In between—as the hippie revolution blossoms in the world outside—Hitchcock adjusts to the hierarchical, homoerotic world of Winchester, threading a path through teachers with arrested development, some oafish peers, and a sullen old maid—a very English freak show. On the way he befriends a cadre of batwing teenage prodigies and meets their local guru, the young Brian Eno. And his home life isn’t any more normal . . .At the end of 1967 all the ingredients are in place that will make Robyn Hitchcock a songwriter for life. But then again, does 1967 ever really end?
224 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 27, 2024
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May 11, 2024
"Time rolls on, picking up fresh passengers and dropping them off at haunted stations."
"Looking down from the future I see the archaeological ruins of 1967. So much of it is lost now; all I can do is uncover a few more of the pieces that are visible so I can assemble some kind of collage. There’s very little evidence now of any of this."
Of course Robyn Hitchcock would never write a straightforward memoir. He picks one year, beginning in 1966 and ending in '67. He has fun with it, jumping in time within that year, commenting on himself writing, on himself remembering, sometimes melancholic, most of the time bemused, always witty, always funny.
We join Hitchcock as a gangly youngster, leaving the comfort of his home to become an 'inmate' at a boarding school, where he quickly is submerged in new music, most notably Bob Dylan, turning him into a 'groover'.
"Then something earth-shattering bursts out of the radio, albeit at ant volume. SKRONK-SKREEKSKRONK-SKREEK: WHA-DA-DA-FANG, DA-DADA-FANG—“Purple Haze all in my brain/Lately things they don’t seem the same”— Jimi Hendrix detonates Pig Town. The ghost porkers jive in the wasteland. Bill and Fred do the Watusi in their floury shed. My moldy magazines sprout fresh pages that turn themselves before my eyes. I am a teenager on fire— oh, holy fuck, this is music to levitate to..."
Hitchcock's writing comes alive when he describes music and the effect it has on him and his fellow inmates. It becomes delerious, mimicking the psychedelia he has come to love.
That said, the memoir is suprisingly grounded - this is still an English boarding school, with all that that entails. The descriptions of his parents and his homelife are moving, riven with a sad warmth, sometimes unflinching:
"Sitting in a big room in a cold house on top of a hill three miles from the nearest town, [my father]’s beginning to feel emasculated. And my mother’s beginning to feel cut off. She likes to see other people and, as my father often points out, he doesn’t. He’s what would now be called a man-child: wants to be the center of her world, takes all his fears and anxieties to her, and he’s jealous of other people’s claims on her attention. Including mine."
It's quite a brief book, and I was sad to reach the end. I think I could've read endlessly about Hitchcock's adventures in the '60s, both at home and at school. Hopefully he'll write a follow-up.
"The master of ceremonies is definitely a groover. I’ve seen him before around Winchester as he’s at the local art school. He has thin shoulder-length hair and a pair of blue circular sunglasses. He’s the logical extension of the Scholars; being slightly older than them, he has the aura of a sage. His name is Brian Eno and he seems to know something."
If I have one complaint, it's the whimsical sections where Hitchcock imagines how the school's janitor spends his time with his sister and a friend. They're quite short, but they felt a bit forced to me, and not particularly funny. It's the difference between reading an amusing tale told well (most of the book) and reading a sketch.
"Nothing is conscious in my head, in terms of planning. My instinct is to play the guitar, long before I’ve learned how to play it. Why bother with mastering the act of walking if your goal is to run? How else can you learn, but by playing? I’m magnetized by the guitar; it’s become my compass."
I'll stop before I quote the entire book at you - do read it; it's moving, it's warm, it's funny. It's lovely.
(Thanks to Akashic Books for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
"Looking down from the future I see the archaeological ruins of 1967. So much of it is lost now; all I can do is uncover a few more of the pieces that are visible so I can assemble some kind of collage. There’s very little evidence now of any of this."
Of course Robyn Hitchcock would never write a straightforward memoir. He picks one year, beginning in 1966 and ending in '67. He has fun with it, jumping in time within that year, commenting on himself writing, on himself remembering, sometimes melancholic, most of the time bemused, always witty, always funny.
We join Hitchcock as a gangly youngster, leaving the comfort of his home to become an 'inmate' at a boarding school, where he quickly is submerged in new music, most notably Bob Dylan, turning him into a 'groover'.
"Then something earth-shattering bursts out of the radio, albeit at ant volume. SKRONK-SKREEKSKRONK-SKREEK: WHA-DA-DA-FANG, DA-DADA-FANG—“Purple Haze all in my brain/Lately things they don’t seem the same”— Jimi Hendrix detonates Pig Town. The ghost porkers jive in the wasteland. Bill and Fred do the Watusi in their floury shed. My moldy magazines sprout fresh pages that turn themselves before my eyes. I am a teenager on fire— oh, holy fuck, this is music to levitate to..."
Hitchcock's writing comes alive when he describes music and the effect it has on him and his fellow inmates. It becomes delerious, mimicking the psychedelia he has come to love.
That said, the memoir is suprisingly grounded - this is still an English boarding school, with all that that entails. The descriptions of his parents and his homelife are moving, riven with a sad warmth, sometimes unflinching:
"Sitting in a big room in a cold house on top of a hill three miles from the nearest town, [my father]’s beginning to feel emasculated. And my mother’s beginning to feel cut off. She likes to see other people and, as my father often points out, he doesn’t. He’s what would now be called a man-child: wants to be the center of her world, takes all his fears and anxieties to her, and he’s jealous of other people’s claims on her attention. Including mine."
It's quite a brief book, and I was sad to reach the end. I think I could've read endlessly about Hitchcock's adventures in the '60s, both at home and at school. Hopefully he'll write a follow-up.
"The master of ceremonies is definitely a groover. I’ve seen him before around Winchester as he’s at the local art school. He has thin shoulder-length hair and a pair of blue circular sunglasses. He’s the logical extension of the Scholars; being slightly older than them, he has the aura of a sage. His name is Brian Eno and he seems to know something."
If I have one complaint, it's the whimsical sections where Hitchcock imagines how the school's janitor spends his time with his sister and a friend. They're quite short, but they felt a bit forced to me, and not particularly funny. It's the difference between reading an amusing tale told well (most of the book) and reading a sketch.
"Nothing is conscious in my head, in terms of planning. My instinct is to play the guitar, long before I’ve learned how to play it. Why bother with mastering the act of walking if your goal is to run? How else can you learn, but by playing? I’m magnetized by the guitar; it’s become my compass."
I'll stop before I quote the entire book at you - do read it; it's moving, it's warm, it's funny. It's lovely.
(Thanks to Akashic Books for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
May 11, 2024
"Time rolls on, picking up fresh passengers and dropping them off at haunted stations."
"Looking down from the future I see the archaeological ruins of 1967. So much of it is lost now; all I can do is uncover a few more of the pieces that are visible so I can assemble some kind of collage. There’s very little evidence now of any of this."
Of course Robyn Hitchcock would never write a straightforward memoir. He picks one year, beginning in 1966 and ending in '67. He has fun with it, jumping in time within that year, commenting on himself writing, on himself remembering, sometimes melancholic, most of the time bemused, always witty, always funny.
We join Hitchcock as a gangly youngster, leaving the comfort of his home to become an 'inmate' at a boarding school, where he quickly is submerged in new music, most notably Bob Dylan, turning him into a 'groover'.
"Then something earth-shattering bursts out of the radio, albeit at ant volume. SKRONK-SKREEKSKRONK-SKREEK: WHA-DA-DA-FANG, DA-DADA-FANG—“Purple Haze all in my brain/Lately things they don’t seem the same”— Jimi Hendrix detonates Pig Town. The ghost porkers jive in the wasteland. Bill and Fred do the Watusi in their floury shed. My moldy magazines sprout fresh pages that turn themselves before my eyes. I am a teenager on fire— oh, holy fuck, this is music to levitate to..."
Hitchcock's writing comes alive when he describes music and the effect it has on him and his fellow inmates. It becomes delerious, mimicking the psychedelia he has come to love.
That said, the memoir is suprisingly grounded - this is still an English boarding school, with all that that entails. The descriptions of his parents and his homelife are moving, riven with a sad warmth, sometimes unflinching:
"Sitting in a big room in a cold house on top of a hill three miles from the nearest town, [my father]’s beginning to feel emasculated. And my mother’s beginning to feel cut off. She likes to see other people and, as my father often points out, he doesn’t. He’s what would now be called a man-child: wants to be the center of her world, takes all his fears and anxieties to her, and he’s jealous of other people’s claims on her attention. Including mine."
It's quite a brief book, and I was sad to reach the end. I think I could've read endlessly about Hitchcock's adventures in the '60s, both at home and at school. Hopefully he'll write a follow-up.
"The master of ceremonies is definitely a groover. I’ve seen him before around Winchester as he’s at the local art school. He has thin shoulder-length hair and a pair of blue circular sunglasses. He’s the logical extension of the Scholars; being slightly older than them, he has the aura of a sage. His name is Brian Eno and he seems to know something."
If I have one complaint, it's the whimsical sections where Hitchcock imagines how the school's janitor spends his time with his sister and a friend. They're quite short, but they felt a bit forced to me, and not particularly funny. It's the difference between reading an amusing tale told well (most of the book) and reading a sketch.
"Nothing is conscious in my head, in terms of planning. My instinct is to play the guitar, long before I’ve learned how to play it. Why bother with mastering the act of walking if your goal is to run? How else can you learn, but by playing? I’m magnetized by the guitar; it’s become my compass."
I'll stop before I quote the entire book at you - do read it; it's moving, it's warm, it's funny. It's lovely.
(Thanks to Akashic Books for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
"Looking down from the future I see the archaeological ruins of 1967. So much of it is lost now; all I can do is uncover a few more of the pieces that are visible so I can assemble some kind of collage. There’s very little evidence now of any of this."
Of course Robyn Hitchcock would never write a straightforward memoir. He picks one year, beginning in 1966 and ending in '67. He has fun with it, jumping in time within that year, commenting on himself writing, on himself remembering, sometimes melancholic, most of the time bemused, always witty, always funny.
We join Hitchcock as a gangly youngster, leaving the comfort of his home to become an 'inmate' at a boarding school, where he quickly is submerged in new music, most notably Bob Dylan, turning him into a 'groover'.
"Then something earth-shattering bursts out of the radio, albeit at ant volume. SKRONK-SKREEKSKRONK-SKREEK: WHA-DA-DA-FANG, DA-DADA-FANG—“Purple Haze all in my brain/Lately things they don’t seem the same”— Jimi Hendrix detonates Pig Town. The ghost porkers jive in the wasteland. Bill and Fred do the Watusi in their floury shed. My moldy magazines sprout fresh pages that turn themselves before my eyes. I am a teenager on fire— oh, holy fuck, this is music to levitate to..."
Hitchcock's writing comes alive when he describes music and the effect it has on him and his fellow inmates. It becomes delerious, mimicking the psychedelia he has come to love.
That said, the memoir is suprisingly grounded - this is still an English boarding school, with all that that entails. The descriptions of his parents and his homelife are moving, riven with a sad warmth, sometimes unflinching:
"Sitting in a big room in a cold house on top of a hill three miles from the nearest town, [my father]’s beginning to feel emasculated. And my mother’s beginning to feel cut off. She likes to see other people and, as my father often points out, he doesn’t. He’s what would now be called a man-child: wants to be the center of her world, takes all his fears and anxieties to her, and he’s jealous of other people’s claims on her attention. Including mine."
It's quite a brief book, and I was sad to reach the end. I think I could've read endlessly about Hitchcock's adventures in the '60s, both at home and at school. Hopefully he'll write a follow-up.
"The master of ceremonies is definitely a groover. I’ve seen him before around Winchester as he’s at the local art school. He has thin shoulder-length hair and a pair of blue circular sunglasses. He’s the logical extension of the Scholars; being slightly older than them, he has the aura of a sage. His name is Brian Eno and he seems to know something."
If I have one complaint, it's the whimsical sections where Hitchcock imagines how the school's janitor spends his time with his sister and a friend. They're quite short, but they felt a bit forced to me, and not particularly funny. It's the difference between reading an amusing tale told well (most of the book) and reading a sketch.
"Nothing is conscious in my head, in terms of planning. My instinct is to play the guitar, long before I’ve learned how to play it. Why bother with mastering the act of walking if your goal is to run? How else can you learn, but by playing? I’m magnetized by the guitar; it’s become my compass."
I'll stop before I quote the entire book at you - do read it; it's moving, it's warm, it's funny. It's lovely.
(Thanks to Akashic Books for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)
October 11, 2024
CRITIQUE:
For the Obsession of Groovers
I've been obsessed by Robyn Hitchcock since some time in the 1980's.
He has a fantastic taste in music, he writes and plays brilliant songs, and his banter during live performances is hilarious.
When he announced that he was writing a memoir about his life in 1967, it was a certainty that I would want to buy, read and review it.
What was less certain was whether I would like the memoir.
For an obsessive fan, I have to say that the book is at best middling, so I've rated it 3 1/2 stars, which I've rounded up to four stars.
My rating isn't so much a product of the book itself, more a product of my disappointed expectations.
A Year in the Life
I was really excited when I became aware that the book was constructed around songs that came out in 1967. I was even more excited when I started to encounter playlists of these songs on YouTube. Then I bought a copy of his album of covers called "1967: Vacations in the Past" (see the soundtrack below).
For some reason, I thought that the memoir was going to explain the influence these songs had had on Hitchcock's life and his music.
Instead, the songs act more like signposts on a year in his life at a private school called Winchester College, when he was 13 or 14 years old. They mark his journey through the year, rather than giving readers any special insight into the journey, let alone the songs themselves.
I had a similar experience when I first read David Mitchell's fourth novel, "Black Swan Green". Both books suffered from their adolescent immaturity, even if Hitchcock's memoir betrays a highly developed sense of humour.
Under the Floorboards
In the same way, the book doesn't live up to its subtitle: it doesn't really show us how Hitchcock got to 1967, nor does it spend much time elaborating on why he never left.
Hitchcock got to 1967 because he was born on March 3, 1953, and lived to experience 1967 while he was at school (i.e., he didn't live the year retrospectively). He listened to the music of 1967 on the radio and on gramophones that were at school and home at the time.
A five page epilogue comes closest to explaining why he never left 1967.
His passion for Bob Dylan never diminished, despite his disappointment with "John Wesley Harding" (Dylan's first album after "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde"):
Likewise, I didn't buy an album after "BOB", until 1975, when Dylan released "Blood on the Tracks".
The front cover of "Blonde on Blonde"
Vacations in the Past
Although "JWH" was released in 1967, Hitchcock says it "signalled the Great Retreat:"
Hitchcock and his school mates had gazed into an alternative world of psychedelia and surrealism, they had liked what they had seen, they bonded over it, and they wanted to remain there, if not necessarily at Winchester College.
At the same time, they were "now part of a vast market that the record companies, the musicians, and the lifestyle sellers could exploit - and we loved it."
Paradoxically, Hitchcock doesn't overtly criticise the commercialism of post-1967 music, except to describe it as "increasingly mediocre music".
For him, more recent music just couldn't compete with the music of 1967:
He wonders if later generations of fans "feel as intense about the music made now as we did about its hippie ancestors." I guess that's for you to say.
SOUNDTRACK:
For the Obsession of Groovers
I've been obsessed by Robyn Hitchcock since some time in the 1980's.
He has a fantastic taste in music, he writes and plays brilliant songs, and his banter during live performances is hilarious.
When he announced that he was writing a memoir about his life in 1967, it was a certainty that I would want to buy, read and review it.
What was less certain was whether I would like the memoir.
For an obsessive fan, I have to say that the book is at best middling, so I've rated it 3 1/2 stars, which I've rounded up to four stars.
My rating isn't so much a product of the book itself, more a product of my disappointed expectations.
A Year in the Life
I was really excited when I became aware that the book was constructed around songs that came out in 1967. I was even more excited when I started to encounter playlists of these songs on YouTube. Then I bought a copy of his album of covers called "1967: Vacations in the Past" (see the soundtrack below).
For some reason, I thought that the memoir was going to explain the influence these songs had had on Hitchcock's life and his music.
Instead, the songs act more like signposts on a year in his life at a private school called Winchester College, when he was 13 or 14 years old. They mark his journey through the year, rather than giving readers any special insight into the journey, let alone the songs themselves.
I had a similar experience when I first read David Mitchell's fourth novel, "Black Swan Green". Both books suffered from their adolescent immaturity, even if Hitchcock's memoir betrays a highly developed sense of humour.
Under the Floorboards
In the same way, the book doesn't live up to its subtitle: it doesn't really show us how Hitchcock got to 1967, nor does it spend much time elaborating on why he never left.
Hitchcock got to 1967 because he was born on March 3, 1953, and lived to experience 1967 while he was at school (i.e., he didn't live the year retrospectively). He listened to the music of 1967 on the radio and on gramophones that were at school and home at the time.
A five page epilogue comes closest to explaining why he never left 1967.
His passion for Bob Dylan never diminished, despite his disappointment with "John Wesley Harding" (Dylan's first album after "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Blonde on Blonde"):
"'JWH' didn't spend half the time on the record player that 'Highway 61' or 'Blonde on Blonde' did, and still do."
Likewise, I didn't buy an album after "BOB", until 1975, when Dylan released "Blood on the Tracks".
The front cover of "Blonde on Blonde"
Vacations in the Past
Although "JWH" was released in 1967, Hitchcock says it "signalled the Great Retreat:"
"The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, even acts such as the Doors jettisoned psychedelia and made their way back to rock 'n' roll..."
Hitchcock and his school mates had gazed into an alternative world of psychedelia and surrealism, they had liked what they had seen, they bonded over it, and they wanted to remain there, if not necessarily at Winchester College.
At the same time, they were "now part of a vast market that the record companies, the musicians, and the lifestyle sellers could exploit - and we loved it."
Paradoxically, Hitchcock doesn't overtly criticise the commercialism of post-1967 music, except to describe it as "increasingly mediocre music".
For him, more recent music just couldn't compete with the music of 1967:
"Music budded and came to fruition then in a way that - to my ears - has never been surpassed."
He wonders if later generations of fans "feel as intense about the music made now as we did about its hippie ancestors." I guess that's for you to say.
"[I] found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream."
(The Beatles, 'A Day in the Life')
SOUNDTRACK:
July 28, 2024
In the early 1980s the British music press would regularly proclaim that next year would be the year of the great psychedelia revival. It proved mysteriously elusive but at least Robyn Hitchcock, who released his first records as the leader of the Soft Boys at the height of the punk wars, has always carried on as though 1967 never ended. I first stumbled across his music in the mid ‘80s. I Often Dream of Trains was the third solo album Syd Barrett never made, while Fegmania! gave a glimpse into what Pink Floyd might have sounded like had Syd remained a member. With song titles like Sandra’s Having Her Brain Out, My Wife & My Dead Wife, and The Man with the Lightbulb Head, and lyrics possessed of a surreal and subversive sensibility, Hitchcock was a one-man psychedelic revival. His entrancingly catchy and effortlessly odd songs evoked Sgt. Pepper’s, the Kinks, Dylan, Love, and Pet Sounds era Beach Boys. Not that he was derivative or a purveyor of pastiche. He sounded unmistakably like himself, but the Day-Glo spirit of psychedelia had clearly entered this man’s soul at a formative age and remained embedded there. His memoir is the story of how it happened.
In early 1967 Robyn Hitchcock was coming up for fourteen and a pupil at Winchester College. So his book is, among other things, a reminiscence of life at an elite English boarding school. Admittedly some of this is slightly overfamiliar territory: boys called Scraper, Horse and Gallows Senior, public school slang (a bicycle is a ‘bogle’ and a bathtub is a ‘swill’, all that sort of thing), time-hallowed yet absurd rituals, and dodgy masters suffering from ‘arrested development’. Still, Hitchcock writes well and even manages a creditable one sentence definition of the entire system: ‘One of the main functions of private education in Britain is to stunt people emotionally and then send them out to run the country’. My interest also perked up considerably when Brian Eno, then a student at the nearby art school, dropped by to give the young Wykehamists some lessons in how to be pretentious in an arty, late ‘60s sort of way.
Hitchcock was raised in a succession of suitably eccentric dwellings: a semi-dilapidated mansion on a hill in Weybridge that, if not exactly haunted, was certainly pretty eerie, and a converted watermill in Hampshire that was in the Domesday Book. Family life was cultured and creative though seemingly at one remove from the rest of the world. His father, Raymond Hitchcock, was a painter, cartoonist and author. At one point he mentions that Raymond has started writing a novel. Although he doesn’t say so, this must have been Percy, a very 1960s slice of naughtiness about the world’s first penis transplant. That could easily be the subject of a song by Hitchcock Junior. The songs in the film that was made of it were by one of young Robyn’s heroes - Ray Davies. I would love to have known what Hitchcock felt about that but, whatever it was, he’s keeping it to himself.
1967 is at its best when Hitchcock is writing about the music that invaded his psyche during the titular year and transformed his life. There’s a lovely description of him hearing a Bob Dylan record by chance, shortly after arriving at the school, which encapsulates how music can come at the adolescent mind out of nowhere, sum up everything you feel, and change you completely. His thoughts about music are eloquently perceptive throughout although, unless he was unusually precocious even for an English public schoolboy, we do seem to be hearing the considered reflections of the septuagenarian rather than the infatuated teenager.
This is an amiable book full of the qualities familiar from Hitchcock’s songs - chief among them an ebulliently wayward humour underscored by a nagging sense of melancholy and the fragility of existence. If you’re among the initiated I expect you’ve already read this or soon will do. If, on the other hand, you have never heard of Robyn Hitchcock, I recommend by way of introduction taking a stroll through the beautifully warped and hauntingly alienated twilight landscape that is I Often Dream of Trains.
In early 1967 Robyn Hitchcock was coming up for fourteen and a pupil at Winchester College. So his book is, among other things, a reminiscence of life at an elite English boarding school. Admittedly some of this is slightly overfamiliar territory: boys called Scraper, Horse and Gallows Senior, public school slang (a bicycle is a ‘bogle’ and a bathtub is a ‘swill’, all that sort of thing), time-hallowed yet absurd rituals, and dodgy masters suffering from ‘arrested development’. Still, Hitchcock writes well and even manages a creditable one sentence definition of the entire system: ‘One of the main functions of private education in Britain is to stunt people emotionally and then send them out to run the country’. My interest also perked up considerably when Brian Eno, then a student at the nearby art school, dropped by to give the young Wykehamists some lessons in how to be pretentious in an arty, late ‘60s sort of way.
Hitchcock was raised in a succession of suitably eccentric dwellings: a semi-dilapidated mansion on a hill in Weybridge that, if not exactly haunted, was certainly pretty eerie, and a converted watermill in Hampshire that was in the Domesday Book. Family life was cultured and creative though seemingly at one remove from the rest of the world. His father, Raymond Hitchcock, was a painter, cartoonist and author. At one point he mentions that Raymond has started writing a novel. Although he doesn’t say so, this must have been Percy, a very 1960s slice of naughtiness about the world’s first penis transplant. That could easily be the subject of a song by Hitchcock Junior. The songs in the film that was made of it were by one of young Robyn’s heroes - Ray Davies. I would love to have known what Hitchcock felt about that but, whatever it was, he’s keeping it to himself.
1967 is at its best when Hitchcock is writing about the music that invaded his psyche during the titular year and transformed his life. There’s a lovely description of him hearing a Bob Dylan record by chance, shortly after arriving at the school, which encapsulates how music can come at the adolescent mind out of nowhere, sum up everything you feel, and change you completely. His thoughts about music are eloquently perceptive throughout although, unless he was unusually precocious even for an English public schoolboy, we do seem to be hearing the considered reflections of the septuagenarian rather than the infatuated teenager.
This is an amiable book full of the qualities familiar from Hitchcock’s songs - chief among them an ebulliently wayward humour underscored by a nagging sense of melancholy and the fragility of existence. If you’re among the initiated I expect you’ve already read this or soon will do. If, on the other hand, you have never heard of Robyn Hitchcock, I recommend by way of introduction taking a stroll through the beautifully warped and hauntingly alienated twilight landscape that is I Often Dream of Trains.
Read
June 22, 2024There's been an upswing in music biographies that stop just as the act's making it - Brett Anderson and Madness were particularly winning about it. But trust Robyn Hitchcock to take it one further and stick to a single year. Of course, also trust Robyn Hitchcock not to do what he says he's going to; inevitably we get loops around that formative year, indeed take almost a quarter of the book to quite settle there after assorted preludes. But the centre of the book's attention is certainly on that formative period. Not, perhaps, for the reasons his parents thought when they sent him to Winchester - and how fascinating it's been reading this while a fellow old boy fucks up so impressively in public, reliably comes across so much less human and relatable than the guy famous for writing songs about insects and trams. Certainly you can see how the place would mess someone up; Hitchcock doesn't get nonced but still has to contend with the weird hierarchical kink, inexplicable rituals, and a world where they've only just put doors on the outside loos (to the outrage of some boys' fathers, who attended before such soppy innovations, and worry it'll make the next generation soft). Hitchcock, though, is getting the benefit of an unofficial education, starting to identify as a groover (or at least a groover in training), getting into Dylan (reading this kicked off one of my very occasional Highway 61 phases) and the Beatles. Reminiscences of whom normally make me switch off instantly, but damned if Hitchcock didn't briefly make me feel it: "Through the amber of sixty years the Beatles glow ever brighter: they mean as much to me now as a white-haired pensioner as they did to the ten-year-old 70 percent-grown me. To me, and to millions of other people about whom I know nothing except that we'll all be gone soon." Elsewhere, Hitchcock is open about how hazy his memories may be, though in a sense that's of secondary importance; this is the version of 1967 which explains his subsequent career, so it's the one that belongs in his book. Still, I can very easily believe that if you were a couple of years below him, Eno would have come across exactly as magnetic yet slappable as he's presented here. Most surprising discovery (and it's not spelled out, but there were trails that led me to check): Hitchcock's frustrated, war-wounded dad wrote Percy, the penis-transplant novel subsequently adapted into a Hywel Bennett comedy with a Kinks soundtrack.
(Edelweiss ARC)
(Edelweiss ARC)
November 8, 2025
Rec. by: Musical history and a Goodreads search
Rec. for: Groovers, man
1967 isn't a full autobiography—far from it. In this slim volume, musician Robyn Hitchcock is focused on—obsessed by—that titular year, give or take a few months on either side, a year he considers pivotal not just for himself but for music in general. He brings a lot to support that view, too. Bob Dylan was his first touchstone, but he also went to school with Brian Eno(!), and the Beatles left their mark on him as well.
Hitchcock is British, and when he was thirteen years old his parents sent him to Winchester College, a public boarding school in Hampshire which was, according to Wikipedia, "founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 as a feeder school for New College, Oxford, and has existed in its present location ever since."
Winchester is where Hitchcock was electrified by Bob Dylan and turned on by the Beatles, listening to their records over and over in the college's commons and on the portable record player he soon acquired... in addition to learning the sorts of things one expects to learn at a centuries-old English boarding school, both in and outside the classroom. Some of those things are light-hearted and quirky; for example, the notion of "Notions," the secret language that students were expected to learn, is often quite funny. Some of them are rather darker, though, and would probably count as child abuse these days, in a more public-facing institution. (It must be remembered that "public school" doesn't mean the same thing across the pond as it does in the U.S.)
For good and ill, though (and, mostly, for good), 1967 was Robyn Hitchcock's annus mirabilis , and 1967 conveys the excitement of his transformation into... well, into one of the most creative musicians I've ever heard.
*
I can't remember my own first encounter with Robyn Hitchcock's music, although I know that I missed out on his first couple (of dozen?) musical incarnations, including his influential band The Soft Boys in the 1970s. I think the first time I noticed Hitchcock's distinctive voice and style was probably with "The Man with the Lightbulb Head," which could have been no earlier than 1985.
(Oh, and apologies for all of the YouTube links...)
That would not be the last time that Hitchcock drew me in. Other songs followed, like "Egyptian Cream," "Madonna of the Wasps," "Balloon Man" (which quite by coincidence was the first song I heard playing the day after finishing 1967, when I turned on my streaming audio at work), "My Wife and My Dead Wife"... and perhaps you can tell just from the titles how deliciously skewed Hitchcock's compositions can be. My LP collection currently contains a half-dozen Hitchcock records.
The 1998 film Storefront Hitchcock deserves mention as well—not only was it directed by Jonathan Demme (he who made Stop Making Sense (1984)), this rockumentary also features fellow West Virginian Deni Bonet on violin.
*
Honestly, there's no real reason for 1967 to be this good—Hitchcock's a musician by trade, not a memoirist—but it is, it is...
Rec. for: Groovers, man
Much will be written about this era in the future (and here I am adding to the pile), but even as it happens there's a feeling of "Where do we go from here?" in the air.
—p.153
1967 isn't a full autobiography—far from it. In this slim volume, musician Robyn Hitchcock is focused on—obsessed by—that titular year, give or take a few months on either side, a year he considers pivotal not just for himself but for music in general. He brings a lot to support that view, too. Bob Dylan was his first touchstone, but he also went to school with Brian Eno(!), and the Beatles left their mark on him as well.
Hitchcock is British, and when he was thirteen years old his parents sent him to Winchester College, a public boarding school in Hampshire which was, according to Wikipedia, "founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 as a feeder school for New College, Oxford, and has existed in its present location ever since."
Winchester is where Hitchcock was electrified by Bob Dylan and turned on by the Beatles, listening to their records over and over in the college's commons and on the portable record player he soon acquired... in addition to learning the sorts of things one expects to learn at a centuries-old English boarding school, both in and outside the classroom. Some of those things are light-hearted and quirky; for example, the notion of "Notions," the secret language that students were expected to learn, is often quite funny. Some of them are rather darker, though, and would probably count as child abuse these days, in a more public-facing institution. (It must be remembered that "public school" doesn't mean the same thing across the pond as it does in the U.S.)
For good and ill, though (and, mostly, for good), 1967 was Robyn Hitchcock's annus mirabilis , and 1967 conveys the excitement of his transformation into... well, into one of the most creative musicians I've ever heard.
*
I can't remember my own first encounter with Robyn Hitchcock's music, although I know that I missed out on his first couple (of dozen?) musical incarnations, including his influential band The Soft Boys in the 1970s. I think the first time I noticed Hitchcock's distinctive voice and style was probably with "The Man with the Lightbulb Head," which could have been no earlier than 1985.
(Oh, and apologies for all of the YouTube links...)
That would not be the last time that Hitchcock drew me in. Other songs followed, like "Egyptian Cream," "Madonna of the Wasps," "Balloon Man" (which quite by coincidence was the first song I heard playing the day after finishing 1967, when I turned on my streaming audio at work), "My Wife and My Dead Wife"... and perhaps you can tell just from the titles how deliciously skewed Hitchcock's compositions can be. My LP collection currently contains a half-dozen Hitchcock records.
The 1998 film Storefront Hitchcock deserves mention as well—not only was it directed by Jonathan Demme (he who made Stop Making Sense (1984)), this rockumentary also features fellow West Virginian Deni Bonet on violin.
*
Honestly, there's no real reason for 1967 to be this good—Hitchcock's a musician by trade, not a memoirist—but it is, it is...
July 23, 2024
This lovely, warm, funny little book captures perfectly the pivotal year in Robyn’s life and illustrates why he is a true, if under-appreciated, National Treasure. Even if you weren’t there, or can’t remember it, you’ll feel at home with the Hitchcocks and in these quaint memories.
January 22, 2025
5 stars. Why? Because THE FUCKING SOFT BOYS alone, innit? This could be Robyn’s musings on the philosophy of cats (by cats) and it’d nab 5.
More? “Leppo & the Jooves;” “Pigworker;” “Rock and Roll Toilet;” “Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole;” “Have a Heart, Betty (I’m Not Fireproof);” “Queen of Eyes;” “TONIGHT;” “He’s A Reptile.” That’s why.
How ‘bout “Madonna of the Wasps” for the win? Fair? Shake my goddam hand.
Almost forgot: a teenaged Brian Eno is in this a good bit. King Groover. Because, of course Eno was there—wherever there was need. A sorta of Moonshine Superman.
An old, old band of mine used to open every show with “Give It to The Soft Boys.” Last millennium. When rock was rock and men were not. I got to sing “Photographs don’t smell” as a result. Thank you, Robyn. It was true joy.
For readers: worth it for his buildup and reaction to John Wesley Harding LP in situ. So goddamn funny. He also offers the keenest insight on Dylanology I’ve ever read, far more than the New Journalist bohobullshittum of Greil Marcus or fucking Simon Reynolds (no, I’m not comparing the two; Reynolds is a walking Mojo magazine with his post-punk cred better placed back inside his hideous anorak, the scab).
I ALWAYS feel like asking a tree for an autograph, as a matter of fact. Let the hen out!
More? “Leppo & the Jooves;” “Pigworker;” “Rock and Roll Toilet;” “Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole;” “Have a Heart, Betty (I’m Not Fireproof);” “Queen of Eyes;” “TONIGHT;” “He’s A Reptile.” That’s why.
How ‘bout “Madonna of the Wasps” for the win? Fair? Shake my goddam hand.
Almost forgot: a teenaged Brian Eno is in this a good bit. King Groover. Because, of course Eno was there—wherever there was need. A sorta of Moonshine Superman.
An old, old band of mine used to open every show with “Give It to The Soft Boys.” Last millennium. When rock was rock and men were not. I got to sing “Photographs don’t smell” as a result. Thank you, Robyn. It was true joy.
For readers: worth it for his buildup and reaction to John Wesley Harding LP in situ. So goddamn funny. He also offers the keenest insight on Dylanology I’ve ever read, far more than the New Journalist bohobullshittum of Greil Marcus or fucking Simon Reynolds (no, I’m not comparing the two; Reynolds is a walking Mojo magazine with his post-punk cred better placed back inside his hideous anorak, the scab).
I ALWAYS feel like asking a tree for an autograph, as a matter of fact. Let the hen out!
January 2, 2025
A story told only as Robyn Hitchcock could tell it. He regales to us his story of the specific year of 1967. A brief microcosm of his life but a very influential year that shaped the man he has become. That year some of the most important music came out that had the largest impact on Robyn and his career. I also listened to the audiobook while reading and I felt like he was on stage at one of his incredibly entertaining gigs, weaving a yarn making us feel like we were right there with him throughout that year. He has an incredible way with words in his songwriting and storytelling. He will be forever one of my favorite artists and this fabulously entertaining book is just the icing on the cake for me!!
June 28, 2024
I’m quite a fan of Hitchcock’s music—in fact, watching him both play and talk about music during his and his wife Emma Swift’s regular livestream shows during Covid are what got me to start playing and learning about the guitar. So I’ve been looking forward to this book, and it did not disappoint.
In this book, Hitchcock tells the story of his life in 1967 through the music he discovered and was obsessed with. I love how he writes about music: not only describing the music, but also how the music affected him and those around him.
In this book, Hitchcock tells the story of his life in 1967 through the music he discovered and was obsessed with. I love how he writes about music: not only describing the music, but also how the music affected him and those around him.
August 9, 2024
As weird and amusing as his music!
June 24, 2024
The British singer, songwriter, and guitarist Robyn Hitchcock has always been a devotee of psychedelia, and in his new memoir 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left, Hitchcock takes us through the happenings of that year, musical and otherwise. Hitchcock turned 14 years old in March of 1967, but the narrative begins a year earlier, when Robyn entered Winchester College, a boarding school founded in 1382.
It was during 1966 that Hitchcock discovered the music of an American singer and songwriter. “He seems to emphasize every word he sings—and there are many of them.” (p.30) It’s Bob Dylan, and the course of Robyn’s life is irrevocably altered.
1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left is an evocation of that time in adolescence when, for some of us, music takes on an almost mystical import, and each passing month seems to bring about a further evolution of our personalities into a different self.
Hitchcock describes the differences at Winchester between the “meatheads” and the “groovers”: “The meatheads are into sports, alcohol, talking about sex, and the Beach Boys. The groovers favor Beat poetry, jazz, and incense sticks.” Things shift when the Beach Boys release “Good Vibrations” and the groovers dig it. Robyn asks a groover friend, “The Beach Boys are for all these beerfucker types, you know—the meatheads—aren’t they?” The groover responds, “No, man, you’ve gotta dig it: the Beach Boys are cool now—this stuff is beautiful, man. It’s like jazz with voices, you know?” (p.59-60)
Robyn’s family background was quite interesting. His father was Raymond Hitchcock, a painter and novelist, and his mother was Joyce Hitchcock, who studied history at Cambridge University, “where she eventually became one of the first generation of women to be allowed to graduate with an official degree.” (p.13)
Hitchcock has some mixed feelings about his privileged education, writing “One of the main functions of private education in Britain is to stunt people emotionally and then send them out to run the country.” (p.96)
It’s no surprise to anyone who knows Hitchcock’s lyrics that he is an astute observer, and he turns many memorable phrases throughout the book. One of my favorites was the way he describes the cover of the Incredible String Band’s album The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion: “The saturated joy of it, the intricacy: everything seems to be turning into something else when you look at it closely: which, for me, is what defines psychedelia.” (p.145) I also love the way Hitchcock describes the autumn of 1967: “The sunsets of 1967 are particularly vivid: flaming pink, orange, and purple silhouette the trees rising out of the white miasma.” (p.153)
I’ve been a fan of Robyn Hitchcock’s music for a long time, so it was a delight to read 1967 and learn more about his background and how the music of the 1960’s affected him. I’m so glad that Robyn Hitchcock wrote this memoir, and it was a pleasure to read it. 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left is a fascinating glimpse into what makes Robyn Hitchcock tick, and how he developed his own unique artistic style. I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in 1960’s pop culture.
It was during 1966 that Hitchcock discovered the music of an American singer and songwriter. “He seems to emphasize every word he sings—and there are many of them.” (p.30) It’s Bob Dylan, and the course of Robyn’s life is irrevocably altered.
1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left is an evocation of that time in adolescence when, for some of us, music takes on an almost mystical import, and each passing month seems to bring about a further evolution of our personalities into a different self.
Hitchcock describes the differences at Winchester between the “meatheads” and the “groovers”: “The meatheads are into sports, alcohol, talking about sex, and the Beach Boys. The groovers favor Beat poetry, jazz, and incense sticks.” Things shift when the Beach Boys release “Good Vibrations” and the groovers dig it. Robyn asks a groover friend, “The Beach Boys are for all these beerfucker types, you know—the meatheads—aren’t they?” The groover responds, “No, man, you’ve gotta dig it: the Beach Boys are cool now—this stuff is beautiful, man. It’s like jazz with voices, you know?” (p.59-60)
Robyn’s family background was quite interesting. His father was Raymond Hitchcock, a painter and novelist, and his mother was Joyce Hitchcock, who studied history at Cambridge University, “where she eventually became one of the first generation of women to be allowed to graduate with an official degree.” (p.13)
Hitchcock has some mixed feelings about his privileged education, writing “One of the main functions of private education in Britain is to stunt people emotionally and then send them out to run the country.” (p.96)
It’s no surprise to anyone who knows Hitchcock’s lyrics that he is an astute observer, and he turns many memorable phrases throughout the book. One of my favorites was the way he describes the cover of the Incredible String Band’s album The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion: “The saturated joy of it, the intricacy: everything seems to be turning into something else when you look at it closely: which, for me, is what defines psychedelia.” (p.145) I also love the way Hitchcock describes the autumn of 1967: “The sunsets of 1967 are particularly vivid: flaming pink, orange, and purple silhouette the trees rising out of the white miasma.” (p.153)
I’ve been a fan of Robyn Hitchcock’s music for a long time, so it was a delight to read 1967 and learn more about his background and how the music of the 1960’s affected him. I’m so glad that Robyn Hitchcock wrote this memoir, and it was a pleasure to read it. 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left is a fascinating glimpse into what makes Robyn Hitchcock tick, and how he developed his own unique artistic style. I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in 1960’s pop culture.
July 21, 2024
I should begin by saying I've been a Robyn Hitchcock fan since the 80s, when he would pop up on MTV occasionally to host their Sunday night alternative music show, 120 Minutes. Therein, he would play songs and go on what I came to understand to be his trademark psychedelic/surreal rambles. I adored the rambles and scooped up all the LPs and cassettes by him I could find.
Unlike a lot of other musical artists who came to indie/underground/"alternative" prominence in the 70s and 80s, Robyn kept on making new music that somehow kept getting better while most of his cohort slipped into mediocrity. Or worse. Then, when Covid hit, he and his amazing wife, Emma Swift, played virtual shows every week that kept me, my wife, and countless fellow groovers tethered to something wonderful and certain in dreadful and uncertain times. For that alone, I am eternally grateful to both of them.
So what about this book? Well, it's enchanted. Robyn writing about 13-year-old Robyn is wonderfully, wistfully nostalgic in the best possible way. In short, if you're a Robyn Hitchcock fan, then fellow groover, procure your copy toot sweet.
Which begs the question: is this book of any interest to anyone unfamiliar with the person who wrote it? I'd like to think so. Particularly if you're a fan of Bob Dylan or Pink Floyd (the Syd stuff) and like the idea of a master raconteur spinning yarns about how those artists influenced his art. I'd like to think that there are folks that will pick this up and discover not only a distinctive writing voice who's turned out a lovely coming of age story awash in the music of the late mid-60s, but also discover a recording artist with nearly 50 years' worth of music to fall in love with. In fact, as I write that out, I find myself insanely jealous of anyone who gets to discover Robyn Hitchcock for the first time. You're in for a treat.
That said, I know it's not for everyone. This one is for the groovers.
Unlike a lot of other musical artists who came to indie/underground/"alternative" prominence in the 70s and 80s, Robyn kept on making new music that somehow kept getting better while most of his cohort slipped into mediocrity. Or worse. Then, when Covid hit, he and his amazing wife, Emma Swift, played virtual shows every week that kept me, my wife, and countless fellow groovers tethered to something wonderful and certain in dreadful and uncertain times. For that alone, I am eternally grateful to both of them.
So what about this book? Well, it's enchanted. Robyn writing about 13-year-old Robyn is wonderfully, wistfully nostalgic in the best possible way. In short, if you're a Robyn Hitchcock fan, then fellow groover, procure your copy toot sweet.
Which begs the question: is this book of any interest to anyone unfamiliar with the person who wrote it? I'd like to think so. Particularly if you're a fan of Bob Dylan or Pink Floyd (the Syd stuff) and like the idea of a master raconteur spinning yarns about how those artists influenced his art. I'd like to think that there are folks that will pick this up and discover not only a distinctive writing voice who's turned out a lovely coming of age story awash in the music of the late mid-60s, but also discover a recording artist with nearly 50 years' worth of music to fall in love with. In fact, as I write that out, I find myself insanely jealous of anyone who gets to discover Robyn Hitchcock for the first time. You're in for a treat.
That said, I know it's not for everyone. This one is for the groovers.
July 29, 2024
Enjoyable, if extremely meandering and occasionally rambling, memoir from Robyn Hitchcock. The title is a little misleading. Yes, the importance of 1967 for him is at the forefront, but he does dig into family history (good and bad) and the years around 1967 as well. It's telling that in his acknowledgements he tells us that he wrote this mostly between 1-6 AM during sleepless spells. The book reads like a dream at times and not always for the better, but it is personal and, of course, Hitchcock's style is his own - rooted in Syd Barrett and Dylan-esque prose. Overall, worthwhile, if you're a fan.
July 26, 2024
Felt like I'd read it before
The audiobook is read by Robyn himself. It's a quaint little nostalgia trip. Very similar to Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry if you've read that. If you've read any English boarding school story where "Music blew my mind and changed the direction of my life" this will feel very familiar.
The audiobook is read by Robyn himself. It's a quaint little nostalgia trip. Very similar to Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry if you've read that. If you've read any English boarding school story where "Music blew my mind and changed the direction of my life" this will feel very familiar.
August 21, 2024
1967 - the year psychedelia broke - was so powerful and influential a year for Robyn, he managed to write a memoir contained (mostly) within that year. What a marvelous concept!
September 26, 2024
I’ve been a fan since the Soft Boys, which looking back could have been a counterpoint to all those stay-hard erectile dysfunction texts that litter my phone.
July 2, 2024
This was a fun trip through early adolescence and into a world of music and wonder! Robyn Hitchcock is a master at songwriting and storytelling. This memoir of this one year focuses on finding yourself no matter how odd it appears to be.
February 11, 2025
I have been a fan of Hitchcock's music for close to 40 years. And I have read short pieces he has written for his records and online. But this book is fantastic and really quite different from the other things I have read by him. It is much more sincere and exposes his vulnerabilities, loves, etc. than the other writings. Great read!!
July 1, 2024
What a fantastic read.
A memoir by Robyn Hitchcock couldn't ever be conventional, and this isn't your usual A to B to C autiobiographical account.
He manages to create a great atmosphere and paints a brilliant picture of his psychedelic reckoning.
The man has such a great command of the English language, it's something to behold for any 'groovers.'
A memoir by Robyn Hitchcock couldn't ever be conventional, and this isn't your usual A to B to C autiobiographical account.
He manages to create a great atmosphere and paints a brilliant picture of his psychedelic reckoning.
The man has such a great command of the English language, it's something to behold for any 'groovers.'
August 17, 2025
I love Robyn Hitchcock.
I've been a fan since the summer of 2013. I had recently graduated, and had just moved into a haunted apartment. I was miserable, depressed, irritable, and contending with a ghost. My wi-fi barely worked, and my internet usage was largely limited to YouTube. My oven worked sometimes, and my closest neighbor sold drugs out of a pizza delivery car. The cops were around with fair frequency.
I was alone on the outskirts of Bloomington, Indiana, and spent my days working at an academic library; my nights were mostly devoted to watching YouTube videos.
My lifelong anglophilia sustained me, in a way. I ate dinner watching rips of British television on YouTube. I fell asleep listening to episodes of QI and Mock the Week. I found British music through the (British) music site The Quietus. It was through the latter that I was introduced to the music of Robyn Hitchcock, erstwhile leader of the Soft Boys and the Egyptians, then-leader of the Venus 3.
I was an avid reader of the site's "Baker's Dozen" feature, in which musicians (and sometimes other creatives) describe their 13 favorite records. I've pretty much always enjoyed psychedelia and 60s music, so after reading the Baker's Dozen, it wasn't a hard sell for me to seek out music by the man himself.
I impulsively purchased his 2004 album Spooked. I liked it immediately: glittering psychedelia that doesn't strive to be twee or retro, the everyday hell of human existence filtered through the lens of a Baby Boomer who, by his own admission, never grew up past 1967. I still get "We're Gonna Live in the Trees" stuck in my head from time to time, and I haven't listened to that record since 2009. But it's a song that, among others (I'm also fond of his cover of Bob Dylan's "Tryin' to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door," from the same album), I played on repeat, because on nights where I couldn't get YouTube to work, I would fall asleep listening to the same cluster of albums. There's one other album from this time that I really latched onto for sentimental reasons, and that's Devin Townsend's Epicloud.
Bleak, pastoral psychedelia. Looking for joy through eyes blinded by tears.
A UFO returns an abductee, who discovers he wasn't missed all that much.
Frogs hop from a pond surrounded by tall grass.
A gang of teenagers make music on the garden (lawn) of a decaying English manor.
A Hoosier looks out across a flat field; the sun is black and the sky rolls up like a scroll, and for a second they know the planet is ill and the most intelligent beasts will inevitably turn to violence and one day the stars will eat everything...
...but at least for a while there was music.
I've been a fan since the summer of 2013. I had recently graduated, and had just moved into a haunted apartment. I was miserable, depressed, irritable, and contending with a ghost. My wi-fi barely worked, and my internet usage was largely limited to YouTube. My oven worked sometimes, and my closest neighbor sold drugs out of a pizza delivery car. The cops were around with fair frequency.
I was alone on the outskirts of Bloomington, Indiana, and spent my days working at an academic library; my nights were mostly devoted to watching YouTube videos.
My lifelong anglophilia sustained me, in a way. I ate dinner watching rips of British television on YouTube. I fell asleep listening to episodes of QI and Mock the Week. I found British music through the (British) music site The Quietus. It was through the latter that I was introduced to the music of Robyn Hitchcock, erstwhile leader of the Soft Boys and the Egyptians, then-leader of the Venus 3.
I was an avid reader of the site's "Baker's Dozen" feature, in which musicians (and sometimes other creatives) describe their 13 favorite records. I've pretty much always enjoyed psychedelia and 60s music, so after reading the Baker's Dozen, it wasn't a hard sell for me to seek out music by the man himself.
I impulsively purchased his 2004 album Spooked. I liked it immediately: glittering psychedelia that doesn't strive to be twee or retro, the everyday hell of human existence filtered through the lens of a Baby Boomer who, by his own admission, never grew up past 1967. I still get "We're Gonna Live in the Trees" stuck in my head from time to time, and I haven't listened to that record since 2009. But it's a song that, among others (I'm also fond of his cover of Bob Dylan's "Tryin' to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door," from the same album), I played on repeat, because on nights where I couldn't get YouTube to work, I would fall asleep listening to the same cluster of albums. There's one other album from this time that I really latched onto for sentimental reasons, and that's Devin Townsend's Epicloud.
Bleak, pastoral psychedelia. Looking for joy through eyes blinded by tears.
A UFO returns an abductee, who discovers he wasn't missed all that much.
Frogs hop from a pond surrounded by tall grass.
A gang of teenagers make music on the garden (lawn) of a decaying English manor.
A Hoosier looks out across a flat field; the sun is black and the sky rolls up like a scroll, and for a second they know the planet is ill and the most intelligent beasts will inevitably turn to violence and one day the stars will eat everything...
...but at least for a while there was music.
February 6, 2025
This is a quick and very enjoyable read! As Kirkus Reviews pointed out, you don't need to be a Robyn Hitchcock fan to get a kick out of this book (though it certainly doesn't hurt) -- anyone with an affinity for the folk rock and psychedelic rock of the late '60s will find much to enjoy here.
Hitchcock turned 14 in 1967. A student (or "inmate") at Winchester College, he was an impressionable underclassman that year, when his fandom of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was expanded to include Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and the new American voice that really caught his attention, the enigmatic Bob Dylan. Hitchcock felt Dylan spoke directly to his soul.
In the '70s Hitchcock went on to be part of the Soft Boys, who were punk era but had a neo-psychedelic feel to them, and then in the '80s he had a solo career and then led Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians (it was at this point that I discovered him -- first with "Perspex Island," which was released while I was in college, but I also really enjoyed "Globe of Frogs" from a few years earlier). In my mind I associate him with some other musicians I was listening to at the time, like Lloyd Cole, Billy Bragg, and Michael Penn, but his voice and style were separate from any of those.
In reading "1967," one learns part of why that is. This isn't a straight-up autobiography; it's definitely a memoir and its pages and the anecdotes contained within are colored by Hitchcock's memories of the year he discovered "his music." For the most part it seems pretty trustworthy, but there are enough flights of fancy that I imagine a good portion of it is revisionist in the way that an older person remembers the past in certain ways -- they may not be true in the strictest literal sense, but they're true to the spirit of the story.
This is a short book, one that I finished in just a few days, but Hitchcock's colorful prose was very effective in bringing to life what he experienced both at home and at school, halfway around the world, in a time period that was three years before I was born. Even if you don't have the slightest clue who Robyn Hitchcock is (it might help to know that book jacket blurbs were provided by Johnny Marr of the Smiths and by singer-songwriter Nick Lowe), if you love rock music I would recommend this one.
Hitchcock turned 14 in 1967. A student (or "inmate") at Winchester College, he was an impressionable underclassman that year, when his fandom of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was expanded to include Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and the new American voice that really caught his attention, the enigmatic Bob Dylan. Hitchcock felt Dylan spoke directly to his soul.
In the '70s Hitchcock went on to be part of the Soft Boys, who were punk era but had a neo-psychedelic feel to them, and then in the '80s he had a solo career and then led Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians (it was at this point that I discovered him -- first with "Perspex Island," which was released while I was in college, but I also really enjoyed "Globe of Frogs" from a few years earlier). In my mind I associate him with some other musicians I was listening to at the time, like Lloyd Cole, Billy Bragg, and Michael Penn, but his voice and style were separate from any of those.
In reading "1967," one learns part of why that is. This isn't a straight-up autobiography; it's definitely a memoir and its pages and the anecdotes contained within are colored by Hitchcock's memories of the year he discovered "his music." For the most part it seems pretty trustworthy, but there are enough flights of fancy that I imagine a good portion of it is revisionist in the way that an older person remembers the past in certain ways -- they may not be true in the strictest literal sense, but they're true to the spirit of the story.
This is a short book, one that I finished in just a few days, but Hitchcock's colorful prose was very effective in bringing to life what he experienced both at home and at school, halfway around the world, in a time period that was three years before I was born. Even if you don't have the slightest clue who Robyn Hitchcock is (it might help to know that book jacket blurbs were provided by Johnny Marr of the Smiths and by singer-songwriter Nick Lowe), if you love rock music I would recommend this one.
September 9, 2024
Robyn has followed his own path in music, bucking trends, writing from his subconscious as the muse takes him into the true psychedelic expression. This memoir is in a similar vein, looking at the titular year of 1967, when he entered a British public boarding school: Winchester College, one of those where the upper middle class of the UK sent their kids. The book begins in Preludes, that time leading up to his being dropped off for the first term. One of which is meeting his tee-jay (dorm prefect), who teaches him the idea of "Notions" words used to communicate among the students, but never, never used in academic work or classrooms. They are a kind of bonding ritual for the students. Yet some of the school rituals are just as strange, such as the first and last day of term, the students being marched out of the buildings at dawn, down a long well worn path, through a viaduct, oddly named "Kate's Cunt", then up the steep slope to the top of the hill and stand within a ring of trees with all the atmosphere of a Neolithic site with the stones. Once there attendance is taken and then all solemnly march back to the school. While music was important at home, his Mother often playing the gramophone at full volume, it was in the dormitory's common room where his real music education began, beginning with Bob Dylan, then the Kinks, Stones, Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd and others. All of those influences still heard in his music and lyrics. Perhaps not for those less inclined to music heavily influenced by the above names, but for me this book gave me a deeper understanding from whence one of my favourite artists came.
April 19, 2025
Rather than write a book review for Robyn Hitchcock's 1967, I decided to reclaim the Dead Kennedy song "Holiday in Cambodia" by way of my lyrical genius.
The original song was written shortly after the genocidal dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, which is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of roughly a quarter of the Cambodian population between 1975 and 1979. The Dead Kennedy lyrics are critical of disingenuous college-aged students in the Western world, contrasting their lifestyle with that of those under the Cambodian regime.
My lyrical version of the song is basically me simply taking the song title at face value, which adheres to sections 3 and 4, sincerity and purity, of my brand new value system. And I mean what I say because my neighbor, the stupid drunk who dresses like an errant mechanic, laminated my brand new value system on a wallet-sized card.
Holiday in Cambodia (new lyrics)
You're in Southeast Asia where the landscape spans
across Mekong Delta and low-lying plains.
The Gulf of Thailand coastline shines
And Phnom Penh, the capital, is home to the art deco Central Market.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Where Cambodians holiday.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife.
The glittering Royal Palace and the National Museum's historical and archaeological exhibits
Lie in contract to the northwest ruins.
Yes we're talking 'bout Angkor Wat
A massive stone temple complex built during the Khmer Empire.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Where Cambodians holiday.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife.
The original song was written shortly after the genocidal dictatorship of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, which is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of roughly a quarter of the Cambodian population between 1975 and 1979. The Dead Kennedy lyrics are critical of disingenuous college-aged students in the Western world, contrasting their lifestyle with that of those under the Cambodian regime.
My lyrical version of the song is basically me simply taking the song title at face value, which adheres to sections 3 and 4, sincerity and purity, of my brand new value system. And I mean what I say because my neighbor, the stupid drunk who dresses like an errant mechanic, laminated my brand new value system on a wallet-sized card.
Holiday in Cambodia (new lyrics)
You're in Southeast Asia where the landscape spans
across Mekong Delta and low-lying plains.
The Gulf of Thailand coastline shines
And Phnom Penh, the capital, is home to the art deco Central Market.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Where Cambodians holiday.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife.
The glittering Royal Palace and the National Museum's historical and archaeological exhibits
Lie in contract to the northwest ruins.
Yes we're talking 'bout Angkor Wat
A massive stone temple complex built during the Khmer Empire.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Where Cambodians holiday.
It's a Holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife.
October 5, 2024
I read this book all the way through while on a flight yesterday. It's delightful! As I think might be at least somewhat accurately said of most of Hitchcock's music, the starting is better than the completed work; his conceit of telling his life story, or at least some meaningful slice or interpretation of it, through telling the story of one single, crucial, teen-aged year of his life, was immediately insightful, engaging, and hilariously entertaining, or at least so I thought. By the end, though, all that good stuff had been somewhat worn down by a whimsy that he apparently can't stop himself from belaboring at too great a length. (One extended UFO reference is wacky and fun; by the time we get to about three, it's a little much.) But only somewhat worn down; the charm of seeing Hitchcock trying to remember, re-assemble, and reconstruct himself through retrieving 55+ year-old memories (at the time he was writing the book) never entirely leaves. It's a fine and, I would guess, pretty damn unique rock and roll memoir: that of a rich (but not aristocratic) and smart (but not scholarly) postwar English kid on the autism spectrum falling in love with both Bob Dylan and psychedelic rock (his stories of "Happenings" at his quasi-elite private boarding school, complete with a young Brian Eno, are wild) and getting his first guitar, then treating everything that follows as postscript. It's one way to tell a life story, that's for sure.
February 14, 2025
As a fan of Hitchcock's music for the past 30 years, I was very excited to learn he'd written a book (and produced an accompanying album of covers from the era). Though he has always given us writings of a surreal science-fiction slant, his first major published work is instead a memoir of what he feels was the formative year of his youth, the titular 1967. Any fan of his music with a musical curiosity will know that he is firmly rooted in the music of the 1960s, so it comes as no surprise that the music and how it affected him begins there.
Hitchcock immediately drops us into a major change in his youth: his first day at a boarding school. This is a uniquely British institution that has been explored ad nauseum in film and written fiction, so he needs to do very little to build that peculiar world. His own experience of that existence and at that particular time is the bulk of the book, though there are asides into his family life and uniquely Hitchcock fantasies of other people's lives.
While this was an amusing and brisk read, it would have been better if more time had been given to Hitchcock's actual experiences and his further explorations of the music of the time. Instead he spends a bit too much of the short page-count on things that didn't actually happen, and often have nothing to do with him at all.
This hardcover Akashic edition has a dust-jacket and (unexplained) black-and-white illustrations (presumedly by the author) throughout.
Hitchcock immediately drops us into a major change in his youth: his first day at a boarding school. This is a uniquely British institution that has been explored ad nauseum in film and written fiction, so he needs to do very little to build that peculiar world. His own experience of that existence and at that particular time is the bulk of the book, though there are asides into his family life and uniquely Hitchcock fantasies of other people's lives.
While this was an amusing and brisk read, it would have been better if more time had been given to Hitchcock's actual experiences and his further explorations of the music of the time. Instead he spends a bit too much of the short page-count on things that didn't actually happen, and often have nothing to do with him at all.
This hardcover Akashic edition has a dust-jacket and (unexplained) black-and-white illustrations (presumedly by the author) throughout.
December 8, 2024
Reading Hitchcock’s memoir of his youth in the year 1967 is a fun, if unessential, supplement to his music. In customarily goofy and dorky style, he provides a highly sensory account of living in the environment of the Winchester boys’ boarding school, where he becomes a “groover,” upon discovery of Bob Dylan, Syd Barrett, and even meeting a young Brian Eno. He engages all senses, describing the varnished wood, musty rooms, frigid temperatures, the sad food (“The primary sandwich in Britain in 1967 is still cheese and tomato, closely followed by ham [sometimes with mustard] and chicken; a runner-up is egg and cress” (117)), in such a way that we can briefly inhabit this time and place.
I was pleased to learn the (presumed) source of Hitchcock’s obsession with fish: growing up, his family moved to a former mill and rehabbed it into a house that straddled the river, under which he would watch the fish. His father even created a pit in the house with a view of the water below.
One of the things I love about Hitchcock is his forthright music fandom. Even a casual familiarity with his music communicates his love for 60s psychedelic musicians, from his choice of covers, to his own unique surrealist revival of the style. It’s refreshing to read a (indie-level) famous musician who, late in his career, is unafraid to openly gush about his love of others’ music.
I was pleased to learn the (presumed) source of Hitchcock’s obsession with fish: growing up, his family moved to a former mill and rehabbed it into a house that straddled the river, under which he would watch the fish. His father even created a pit in the house with a view of the water below.
One of the things I love about Hitchcock is his forthright music fandom. Even a casual familiarity with his music communicates his love for 60s psychedelic musicians, from his choice of covers, to his own unique surrealist revival of the style. It’s refreshing to read a (indie-level) famous musician who, late in his career, is unafraid to openly gush about his love of others’ music.
May 26, 2025
Like Michael Chabon's quote, it is pretty inspired to restrict an autobiography to a single year. Hitchcock does cheat a bit and starts it in 1966, but it makes sense that 15 is a pivotal year when you're discovering music, especially when it's such an incredibly eventful year.
I have, however, read a ton of bios that talk about the dreariness and drudgery of growing up in English's school systems, both public and private, and the details don't really get any more interesting the 30th time around. It did make me laugh that one reason that Hitchcock spent so much time in the music department was that the teacher had great sandwiches. When the school is underfeeding a growing teenager, there's worse things to do than to learn an instrument in order to get good sandwiches!
Also, while his parent did pay to put him in this private school, like most kids, he didn't have much spare money for a lot of records, so his beginning collection was extremely sparse, spending at least a quarter of the book talking about Bob Dylan, with a smattering of Hendrix, Pink Floyd and just a few others, and whatever other records his classmates played on the communal player.
While Hitchcock was clearly a Syd Barrett acolyte from the earliest Soft Boys recordings, he was also into Captain Beefheart. It would have been nice to have him talk about some of the other music from that year that he heard later.
The book is too short, and I was slightly disappointed, but am rounding my 3.5 up to a 4.
I have, however, read a ton of bios that talk about the dreariness and drudgery of growing up in English's school systems, both public and private, and the details don't really get any more interesting the 30th time around. It did make me laugh that one reason that Hitchcock spent so much time in the music department was that the teacher had great sandwiches. When the school is underfeeding a growing teenager, there's worse things to do than to learn an instrument in order to get good sandwiches!
Also, while his parent did pay to put him in this private school, like most kids, he didn't have much spare money for a lot of records, so his beginning collection was extremely sparse, spending at least a quarter of the book talking about Bob Dylan, with a smattering of Hendrix, Pink Floyd and just a few others, and whatever other records his classmates played on the communal player.
While Hitchcock was clearly a Syd Barrett acolyte from the earliest Soft Boys recordings, he was also into Captain Beefheart. It would have been nice to have him talk about some of the other music from that year that he heard later.
The book is too short, and I was slightly disappointed, but am rounding my 3.5 up to a 4.
December 8, 2024
Titularly encapsulated, Hitchcock features a tale of that pivotal, coming-of-age year. Those familiar with his reverence of Dylan and Barrett will enjoy the recounting the context of those initial encounters. One also gets a (blurry?) image of his family and (clearer) sense the boys/social network at Winchester College. It was weighted a bit more toward nostalgia as opposed to reflection or introspection. How does a world-famous rock musician continuously mine said inspiration without exhausting it? What else has been injected into their creative process to suggest that, while he may have never left ’67, he certainly took some vacations away? At the end, those answers were left unclear. Perhaps this was intentional, presuming the reader is familiar with all the musicians including Hitchcock himself - that the reader could readily observe the differences in themes, instrumentation and arrangements of Soft Boys, Egyptians, Venus Three’s, etc. songs. Conversely, focusing on a single year allowed the book to feel focused and was a pleasant, quick read as opposed many others that end up being an overstuffed inventory, including lists of the days when toe nails were clipped. In turn, Hitchcock allows his life’s work to stand as the greater testament with this short book serving a lettered digestif to a euphonious meal. Get to work on their back catalog music if you are unfamiliar — almost 40 years of great music to try on for size!
July 28, 2024
It's no surprise that the author of some of the most brilliant song lyrics of the last several decades would be a perceptive and skilled prose writer as well. This memoir covers a pivotal year in Hitchcock's life, when his identity began to coalesce around music and art, and his influences came at him fast and furious--Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, his parents' eccentricities and love of the surreal, boarding school, life in post-war England, etc.
Brian Eno makes a surprise appearance here--a few years older than Robyn, he had already distinguished himself in the area as a purveyor of arty "happenings." Readers also discover the provenance of the author's famous obsession with fish and water creatures.
There are some moments when Hitchcock trails off into flights of fancy (a recurring bit where he imagines the inner monologues and home lives of his opaque elders at school), and these moments seem unnecessary. Overall, though, it's a warm, effortless read. Hitchcock, who tends to lean into his weirdness in both his songs and his onstage patter, comes across as very human and relatable.
Brian Eno makes a surprise appearance here--a few years older than Robyn, he had already distinguished himself in the area as a purveyor of arty "happenings." Readers also discover the provenance of the author's famous obsession with fish and water creatures.
There are some moments when Hitchcock trails off into flights of fancy (a recurring bit where he imagines the inner monologues and home lives of his opaque elders at school), and these moments seem unnecessary. Overall, though, it's a warm, effortless read. Hitchcock, who tends to lean into his weirdness in both his songs and his onstage patter, comes across as very human and relatable.
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