“For me, life veers between the inane and profound, the banal and the terrifying”
EVEN on London’s teeming Commercial Street, Robyn Hitchcock cuts a conspicuous figure: imposingly tall and clad in a brightly patterned Paul Smith shirt, today he’s joined by his partner, singer-songwriter Emma Swift, and their Cavalier puppy Daphne. Basking in the late summer sun, fresh from a trip to his usual home in Nashville, he’s delighted to be back in the UK.
“I’d prefer to go over the waterfall here than in the States,” the former Soft Boy muses. “The great thing about here is we don’t have Jesus and we don’t have guns, but it’s the same mindset really – Britain and America swap insanities. I never pursued it, but America was where I caught on, maybe because I am so English?”
Hitchcock is preparing to release his 22nd album, the remotely recorded Shufflemania!, which saw guests such as Johnny Marr, Sean Ono Lennon and Wilco’s Pat Sansone adding to the psych-folk songwriter’s solo recordings in their own studios.
“They’re all people who can intuit what the song needs,” Hitchcock explains, “and
