Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

9.

Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians – Fegmania!

This is a record I had when I was a younger man and I stumbled back onto it. I love every song on it. I love his melodies. I love his surrealist point of view. He was really in love with language and melody. [sings] “My wife and my dead wife, did anyone ever see her?” He knows he’s getting your attention. He’s very entertaining. [sings] “I’m the man with the lightbulb head!” He’s got me man! He had me with the song titles alone.

It has this one 80s poppy number. [‘Heaven’] (sings) “She’s got heaven, heaven in her eyes.” He doesn’t sound groundbreaking lyrically up to that point. He gets to the resolve: “She’s got arms, she’s got legs, she’s got heaven.” It’s like the object of affection in the song is being dismembered. He’s not expressing his own sexual drive. He’s not saying it how Rod Stewart would say it. [At this point he unleashes a Rod Stewart howl.] Hitchcock’s poetry bubbles out of him like Lewis Carrol. It doesn’t have to make sense.

Selected in other Baker’s Dozens: Lord Spikeheart, Tom Ravenscroft
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