I Often Dream of Trains

Robyn Hitchcock

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 24, 1995)
• Original Release Date: 1984
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Ada
• ASIN: B0000033F8
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #121,736 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Track Listings

1. Nocturne (Prelude)

2. Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl

3. Cathedral

4. Uncorrected Personality Traits

5. Sounds Great When You're Dead

6. Flavour of Night

7. Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus

8. Mellow Together

9. Winter Love

10. Bones in the Ground

11. My Favourite Buildings

12. I Used to Say I Love You

13. This Could Be the Day

14. Trams of Old London

15. Furry Green Atom Bowl

16. Heart Full of Leaves

17. Autumn Is Your Last Chance

18. I Often Dream of Trains

19. Nocturne (Demise)

20. Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus [#][*][Demo Version]

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The ghosts of cracked '60s British visionaries Syd Barrett, Vivian Stanshall, and Kevin Ayers float above this pleasurable 1984 release, arguably Robyn Hitchock's definitive solo statement. I Often Dream of Trains is a sparse, surreal work that alternates moments of sublime, acoustic beauty with bouts of puerile, schoolboy humor. The usual Hitchcockian obsessions are here: death (the rousing and gloomy "Sounds Great When You're Dead" and the haunting, majestic "Bones in the Ground"), nostalgia for the lost and obscure (the cocktail lounge lament "My Favourite Buildings" and the priceless, lush "Trams of Old London"), decay (the lovely, haunting instrumental track "Heart Full of Leaves" and the savory "Autumn Is Your Last Chance"), and unmitigated pot-head nonsense (the desultory "Furry Green Atom Bowl"). Forced novelty numbers such as "Uncorrected Personality Traits" and "Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl" grate after repeated listenings, making a strong case for the judicious employment of the CD player's program function. --Mike McGonigal

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stark, funny, disturbing and at least 2 toilet references..., June 6, 2003

By	ewomack "ewomack" (MN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This is hands-down Robyn Hitchcock at his best. It was the first album of his I heard, and from the first notes of the opening "Nocturne" I was hooked. When "Sometimes I Wish I was a Pretty Girl" started, I didn't know what I had got myself into (I was riding in a car, and the driver had put it in; I'm now happy I was forced to listen to it). Half way through I knew there was something new and exciting about this mostly mellow and introspective album. How many rock stars can do a capella and make it funny without being trite?

Long before the "unplugged" movement came and went, Robyn unplugged with far better results. I've never heard what the inspiration for this album was, but I'm sure it was a bizarre melancholy. The songs tend to be slower in tempo, bathed in cavernous reverb, and haunting. "Cathedral" arpeggios beautifully while Robyn sings "there behind your open face lies an awful lot of space" and "like a toilet from outside, a cathedral from inside." The thumpy "It Sounds Great When You're Dead" opens with the unforgettable, unindelible line "Your mother is a journalist, your father is a creep, they make it in your bedroom when they think you're fast asleep." "Heartful of Leaves" is an amazing instrumental work that conjures up images of autumn and literal or figurative death. It leads right into "Autumn is Your Last Chance" which will provide anyone succor from a failed relationship or personal shaft (with emphasis on the lyric "...'cause you're not there and I don't care"). The finale and title track is one of Hitchcock's best songs (a not so subtle Freudian reference to lack of carnal pleasure or melancholic obsession with the same).

There are a few light moments: "Ye Sleeping Nights of Jesus" is an intentionally sloppy drunk bouncy country number that will have you singing along on the first listen (during the last verse someone is even calling out the words in sing-a-long style, so just let it wail). "This Could Be the Day" is brimming with optimism and an upbeat tempo, but it does not seem out of place at all.

Sadly, Hitchcock has not reached such heights on previous or subsequent albums. "I Often Dream Of Trains" really sticks out in his oeuvre, both in its starkness and in the quality of its songs. That's not to say his other albums are awful (I really enjoy many of his other albums as well such as "Globe of Frogs", "Eye", "Invisible Hitchcock"), but they don't seem to have that "something" that this album has. No one can blame Hitchcock for not topping this one; it would be very difficult to top, but the fact that it came out of him puts him near the top of my list of best and favorite songwriters. If I could produce an album half this good I'd be able to retire my guitar forever.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Acoustic genius!, April 17, 2003

By	Jennifer C. (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This CD has been in my collection since at least 1989 and it's remained an easy, constant top five favorite of mine. From beginning to end, it's sheer mastery of the musical language. I find it to be a rather nocturnal album, in that I often find myself wanting to listen to it in the wee hours, and really, the general mood and atmosphere of the album are well suited to the dark cover of night. I'll still play it in the daytime, of course, but the album just feels more powerful to me when played after dark. That's just a minor observation though... perhaps it's because I'm such a night owl.

Some of my favorites include the catchy "The Bones In The Ground" and "My Favourite Buildings", the relatively straightforward "Sounds Great When You're Dead" and "Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl", the acapella sounds of the quite humorous "Uncorrected Personality Traits" and the strange and complex "Furry Green Atom Bowl", the haunting "Winter Love" and "Cathedral" and naturally, the wistful title track. Okay, I could go on and my list could really cover the entire CD, but it truly is THAT good. I'm not even sure I could pick just one favorite song, if I were pressed to do so, because they're all amazing to me for various reasons. You will find Robyn's usual themes of love, sex and death scattered all throughout the album.

Each song is its own lush landscape, imaginative and surreal, and the best part is that it's achieved using rather spare arrangements: mainly acoustic guitar, some piano and Robyn's own unequivocally unique voice, with just a touch of sax in "Flavour of Night". It's a very stripped down, refreshing sound and I really appreciate the simplicity of it all; it certainly does not suffer for lack of electric instruments.

Upon every listen (and surely they've been countless by now), it sounds as fresh and mesmerizing to me as it did the very first time I spun it and had the pleasure of hearing the first few melancholy piano notes of "Nocturne (Prelude)" drifting from my speakers. The unusual poetry of this album is a rare gift to be savored and shared with others who might appreciate its witty, quirky nature. This is an album that should be in the collection of anyone who can appreciate simply entrancing music and clever wordplay, masterfully mingled with a touch of the unreal.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly Beautiful, July 18, 2004

By	Elizabeth (Chattanooga) - See all my reviews

I discovered this album in 1985 and have cherished it since my very first listen. It is a brilliant composition that mixes Hitchcock's (then) burgeoning skills as a versatile musician with his cynicism about life, fascination with death, and obsession with finding the absurd in everything. The album is introduced by "Nocturne," a beautiful prelude that belies the juxtaposition of extreme madness and luminous insight that is evident throughout each successive track. The prelude leads immediately into the singer's wish that he "was a pretty girl," so he could (mumble) himself in the shower. In later recordings of this song, Hitchcock replaces the unintelligible mumble with "shoot," but on this album the listener is left questioning. The confusion, though, establishes the appropriate mindset for listening to the rest of the album. After the haunting "Cathedral" of the mind, in which "all the worshippers are blind," we are startled by the upbeat, a cappella "Uncorrected Personality Traits," a discussion of how early-established neuroses affect us as adults. His preoccupation with childhood psycho-traumas continues in "Sounds Great When You're Dead," which leads to a list of horrible ways humans die in "Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus," a mock country song that questions the concept of Jesus (whose knights, by the way, look extremely tired for some reason). The rest of the album, for the most part, retains the disturbing melancholic quality of the prelude. If I had only one CD to keep for the rest of my life, this would be it. Over the past (almost) twenty years, it has made me cry and laugh, and sometimes simultaneously. Tracks 8-12 are extras that were not on the original LP, and while I at first thought they disturbed the continuity of the album, I now enjoy them, too.