1967: Vacations in the Past by Robyn Hitchcock–Album Review
1967: Vacations in the Past by Robyn Hitchcock–Album Review
Robyn Hitchcock is a true Renaissance man – a man of many talents and interests: painting, writing, and not the least: songwriting and performing music. As a member of The Soft Boys in the late 1970s, he crafted pop songs and witty lyrics with a psychedelic bent like “I Wanna Destroy You” – which were very much at odds with the punk and new wave musical happenings at the same time. Following his time with that band, Robyn embarked on a solo career in the early 1980s. He eventually regrouped with several of his Soft Boys band to form The Egyptians – one of several lineups he would front over the next three decades.
Possessed with a remarkable vocabulary and a flair for descriptive writing, Robyn’s voice is similar to that of John Lennon and others from the late 1960s. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has read his excellent memoir “1967: How I Got There and Never Left” and the musical references he
“The Beatles was what everybody had in common. It was a sort of meeting place.”
makes throughout. Personally, this writer is lucky to have not only reviewed the memoir for this site but also interviewed Robyn as well. It was a delightful interview that covered a wide range of topics from bees to fountain pens and hummingbirds to 12-string guitars and Peter Buck.
“1967: Vacations in the Past” is a companion album to the memoir. Covering a single year, more or less, from 1966 to the end of 1967, the book was intentionally written to show Robyn’s origin story rather than a history of his career. Robyn’s wife, the singer Emma Swift, was the instigator of the record as a companion to the book. In a small house, suffering from persistent insomnia and the fear of making too much noise with a typewriter, Robyn wrote the majority of the book on his iPhone in the early morning hours while the rest of the house was asleep.
The album is – except for one original song aptly titled “Vacations in the Past,” a collection of period-relevant cover songs. Given the book focuses on his nascent musical upbringing, the companion album presents a selection of the songs he discusses in the book by artists who would later have a profound influence on his music. No stranger to cover songs, Robyn has recorded several full-length albums of songs including 2002’s “Robyn Sings” which featured Bob Dylan songs, and 2014’s “The Man Upstairs” which featured songs by Roxy Music, The Psychedelic Furs, and The Doors.
1967 – being the era that birthed psychedelic everything, the songs covered on “1967: Vacations in the Past” are a curated view into the music of the time. “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum starts it off and then leans into tunes by pop stars who were also exploring psychedelic music at the time
like Ray Davies and The
“Nineteen sixty-seven finished, but it never ended.”
Kinks and “Waterloo Sunset’ and “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” by Jimi Hendrix. “See Emily Play” by Pink Floyd gets some solid coverage in the book as does “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” made famous by Scott McKenzie but penned by Papa John Phillips.
Hitchcock offers up his own original to the album in the form of “Vacations in the Past” – a serene look back at his past – “like an octopus on speed…” The Small Faces, Traffic, and The Incredible String Band are also represented here – as are The Beatles with the final song “A Day in the Life.” Robyn digs deep into how influential The Beatles were on him and his classmates at Winchester College in Cambridge in 1967.
C. Elliott Photography
Interestingly, one artist who plays a significant role in the book is Bob Dylan – yet he’s not included in the songs covered here. Robyn describes “1967: Vacations in the Past” as being “campfire psychedelia with a little bit of Mellotron and sitar on it just to kind of show you as a nod to where it came from.” Currently on a limited engagement tour in the UK and US supporting “1967: Vacations in the Past,” Robyn continues to write original music and paint whenever he can.
Tracklist:
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Itchycoo Park
Burning of the Midnight Lamp
I Can Hear The Grass Grow
San Francisco (Flowers In Your Hair)
Waterloo Sunset
See Emily Play
My White Bicycle
No Face, No Name, No Number
Way Back In The 1960s
Vacations In The Past
A Day In The Life
Related: Interview with Robyn Hitchcock (2022)
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