Grazie al cielo nella nostra carriera di ascoltatori non sono mancati gli incontri con musicisti lunatici e irregolari, gente capace di dare il meglio di se stessi percorrendo la sottile linea rossa tra lo studio di registrazione e l'ambulatorio psichiatrico. Come dei Cappellai Matti capitati per caso in un quadro di Hyeronimus Bosch, tra strane figure mezze umane e mezze animali, per mostrare al codazzo di visitatori le proprie meraviglie racchiuse in un pezzo di vinile nero. Così le migliori opere di Skip Spence, Syd Barrett, Roy Harper, sono nate quando si pensava che i loro autori fossero ormai inservibili alla causa della musica rock. Collegare Robyn Hitchcock, titolare ad inizi anni ottanta dell'accattivante pop elettrico dei Soft Boys, con questi lebbrosi incappucciati è un'operazione assai virtuosa. Lui non ha dato mai di matto, non ha tentato di massacrare a martellate il resto del gruppo o di salire nudo sull'autobus, ma ha sempre difeso la sua libertà creativa da quando disse addio ai (per lui) mediocri Soft Boys e ai brufolosi ascoltatori della solita birreria.
Hitch, che era sempre stato elettrico, nel 1984 raduna i suoi fantasmi personali (Lennon, Barrett, McGuinn, Dylan, Ray Davies) e li sparpaglia acusticamente nella mezza dozzina di personalità diverse che abitavano la sua mente depressa dall'insuccesso dei primi due dischi da solista. L'isolamento in un cottage nel Sussex porta a sentire gli insetti ronzare nella testa e a volerli catturare dapprima con retini fatti di notturni pianistici chopiniani ("Nocturne", "Flavour of Night"), poi con zucchero filato sparso su ballate barrettianamente acide ("Cathedral", "Winter Love", "Trams of London") oppure bizzarre trappole vocali a cappella ("Uncorrected Personality Traits", "Furry Green Atom Blown"). La pazienza messa a dura prova con un'insistente caccia a colpi di martello percussivo di corde basse della chitarra (la spudoratamente raydavesiana "Sounds Great When You're Dead" e il country stonato alla Skip Spence di "The Bones in The Ground" ) fino a provare le maniere più energiche con le scariche adrenaliniche di "Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl" e i robusti accordi di piano di "This Could Be The Day".
Giacché è tutto inutile e gli insetti sono ancora là a ronzare, prima di crollare nell'inferno dei nervi meglio tentare di catturarli tessendo ragnatele nei meandri della mente con ballate sospese tra la purissima luce di "I Used to Say I Love You" e il mantrico crepuscolo di "Autumn is Your Last Chance". Sapete che questo è stato il metodo preferito da Syd Barrett, ma lui non è più tornato tra noi. Robyn Hitchcock invece sì, e con gli Egyptians negli anni successivi uscirà dal quadro di Bosch allargando i suoi colori con pennellate elettriche di assoluto valore.
Ma questo rimane un disco lunatico e sgangherato che chiede di stabilire una complicità più che un semplice ascolto: un uomo solo e pochi strumenti per tappezzarci il cuore con foglie ingiallite.
Elenco tracce testi e samples
03 Cathedral (03:40)
Do you wonder like I do
What goes on inside of you
In the cathedral of the mind
All the worshippers are blind
Like a toilet from outside
A cathedral from inside
There behind your open face
Lies an awful lot of space
And if I ever look into
your open eyes again
I'll remind myself to stare
until I'm looking through
your eyes
When I'm hurt you feel the pain
You've been in my head again
You're projecting onto me
What you'd like yourself to see
Now the clock is beating fast
Every moment wanders past
And fades away
Then comes back another day
Do I go or do I stay
Inside your mind
04 Uncorrected Personality Traits (01:43)
Uncorrected personality traits
That seem whimsical in a child
May prove to be ugly
In a fully grown adult
Lack of involvement with the father
Or overinvolvement with the mother
Can result in lack of ability
To relate to sexual peers
And in homosexual leanings
Narcissism, transexuality
Girls from the waist up
Men from the waist down
Attempts to be your own love object
Reconcile your parents to you
By becoming both at once
Even Marilyn Monroe was a man
But this tends to get overlooked
By a mother-fixated
Overweight sexist media
So uncorrected personality traits
That seem whimsical in a child
May prove to be ugly
In a fully grown adult
If you give in to them
Everytime they cry
They will become little tyrants
But they won't remember why
Then when they are thwarted
By people in later life
They will become psychotic
And they won't make an ideal
Husband or wife
The spoiled baby grows into
The escapist teenager who's
The adult alcoholic who's
The middle-aged suicide
Oy! So
Uncorrected personality traits
That seem whimsical in a child
May prove to be ugly
In a fully grown adult
09 Trams of Old London (03:27)
Trams of old London
Taking my baby into the past in it
Trams of old London blow my mind
Ludgate, Fenchurch, Highgate Hill
Rolling slowly up there still, uh-huh
Waterloo and Clerkenwell
Out to Aldgate East as well, uh-huh
On a clear night you can see
Where the rails used to be
Oh it seems like ancient myth
They once ran to Hammersmith
Trams of old London
Taking my baby into the past in it
Trams of old London blow my mind
Through Electric Avenue
Brixton down in southwest too, uh-huh
Teddington and Kennington
Twickenham and Paddington, uh-huh
In the blitz they never closed
Though they blew up half the roads
Oh it hurts me just to see 'em
Going dead in a museum
Ah...
Trams of old London
Taking my baby into the past in it
Trams of old London blow my mind
Trams of old London
Taking my baby into the past in it
Trams of old London blow my mind
10 Furry Green Atom Bowl (03:15)
Furry green eye
In a furry green hole
It's a furry green atom bowl
Furry green eye
In a furry green bowl
It's a furry green atom bowl
Spread-dud-dust, spread-dud-dust
Spread-dud-dust in a reaching way
As the dead bug flares, dead bug flares
Dead bug flares in a swollen glow
Furry green mole
In a furry green hole
It's a furry green atom bowl
Um...
Um...
Verdigris, verdigris
Verdigris, verdigris
Verdigris, verdigris
Um...
Um...
Um...
Um...
The lid comes off like a casserole
(The lid comes off like a casserole)
The steam comes up the devil's nose
He knows, he knows, he always knows
He sits there in a silver cone
Drumming his fingers on a golden throne
He loves that smell
He loves that smell
Um...
Um...
That swollen bowl it blew up whole
(That swollen bowl it blew up whole)
And the black was hungry when it came down
So it et the world for miles around
Sticky black meat (sticky black meat)
Will flood your street (will flood your street)
Sticky black oil
Will boil your soil
Furry green eye
In a furry green hole
It's a furry green atom bowl
Furry green eggs
On furry green legs
Big ones, small ones, out they roll
Gonna shake my pie, gonna bake my soul
It's a crusty old pie (it's a crusty old pie)
But it's a crusty old world (it's a crusty old world)
And underneath (underneath)
There's roots and bulbs (roots and bulbs)
Gonna mix 'em all up (gonna mix 'em all up)
In the atom bowl
Big ones, small ones, out they roll
Big ones, small ones, out they roll
Big ones, small ones, out they roll
In a new formation
In a new formation
In a new formation
Spell a brand new world with the same old letters
Um...
Um...
Um...
Um...
There's roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
Roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
Roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
And that's the way to stay
There's roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
There's roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
There's roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
And that's the way to stay
There's roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
There's roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
There's roots in the earth and kidneys in the body
And that's the way to stay
13 I Often Dream of Trains (02:25)
I often dream of trains when I'm alone
I ride on them into another zone
I dream of them constantly
Heading for paradise
Or Basingstoke
Or Reading
I often dream of trains when I'm awake
They ride along beside a frozen lake
And there in the buffet car
I wait for eternity
Or Basingstoke
Or Reading
I often dream of trains till it gets light
The summer turns to winter overnight
The leaves fall so suddenly
The sun sets at four o'clock
Exactly what
I'm dreading
I often dream of trains when I'm with you
I wonder if you dream about them too
Maybe we'll meet one night
Out in the corridor
I'm waiting for
You baby
Baby
Baby
Baby
Baby
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Di GIANLUIGI67
Il Nostro Robyn ha toccato le corde dell’armonia.
Credetemi questo è puro Hitchcock, visionario, innocente, inconcludente.
