Customer Reviews

Respect

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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What frequently happens to me in regards to Robyn Hitchcock is that I'll listen to an album and then forget all about it. When I rediscover it months or years later, I find myself thinking "Wow, I'd forgotten this song was on this album!" Some of his songs stick with me long after I've forgotten about the albums they're from. This happened to me most recently with Moss Elixir.

Respect is another one of those albums. I re-discovered it recently and found myself saying "Huh, I'd forgotten that this was the album 'Arms of Love' was on." Respect has some classic Hitchcock tracks ("The Wreck of the Arthur Lee," for example, and the aforementioned "Arms of Love"). While it contains some overly silly material ("The Yip Song" and the utterly bizarre "Wafflehead"), its true value is on Hitchcock's more somber, thoughtful side ("Then You're Dust," "Serpent at the Gates of Wisdom").

This isn't necessarily an album for fans of Hitchcock's sillier "Balloon Man" side, but it is an excellent showcase of Hitchcock's songwriting ability. It's out of print, but it's definitely worth tracking down.

Am I the only one who fell head-over-heels in love with the song "Wafflehead"? It's saturated with sensual, poetic imagery that draws you into a tub of maple syrup and dances across your skin. At least, that's what it did to me when I first heard this album as a radio jockey at my college. It still does that to me. RESPECT was, by far, the best album by Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians. What makes this album so special is twofold: it's the product of the evolution and maturation of a prolific artist and, it's layered with fantastical storytelling. If you're new to Robyn Hitchcock's tricks, I would urge you to first start with FEGMANIA! or GROOVY DECOY or GLOBE OF FROGS before getting your hands sticky with this one. You'll love every nibble you take...

A kinder, gentler, Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians album, (save the nursery rhyme-like, "The Yip Song", and the grunting, lecherous, "Wafflehead"), with respect due, according to the liner notes to Raymond Hitchcock, (father?), and John Lennon. The partiarchal inspiration is evident in the soft bongo and acoustic driven transcendence of generations in "Railway Shoes", a slice of lazy day sunshine in brand spanking new shoes, - "the ghost of your father is right by your side, he's so close to you that he's almost inside, he's guiding your head and he's guiding your limbs, but he isn't you, and you know you're not him, in your railway shoes." Beatlesque influences filter throughout, with Asian-Indian "Baby, You're a Rich Man", sounds in the hallucinogenic, "When I Was Dead", - "When I was dead, I wore a strong perfume...". Hitchcock embraces Lennon's crusade for love and peace, without Audrey Hepburn's tentacle feelers and other morphing metaphors, in honest and global love songs that are surprisingly deft and touching. "Arms of Love", is more emotional than anything U2 might plead by, and 'Love' is lost like a ship downed at sea, in "The Wreck of The Arthur Lee", a seeming reference to Arthur Lee's prog rock ensemble, "Love", and his abandonment of humanist spirituality in favor of a more conventional Christian belief. But, there's more. "The Moon Inside", is a spooky, multi-layered techno rock haunt of mortality and demise, and "Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)", is a rewarding, joyous, pop stomp of heroic, life saving radio waves. Given Hitchcock's penchant for borderline bipolar observations, "Respect", is like an escape from the ward, for a few rationale moments of love and respect.

It's a crying shame that this was the last album Robyn Hitchcock made with the Egyptians, because it was the best album I've ever heard by him, and I've heard at least a dozen. "Respect" had the same full-bodied, ready for radio production as "Queen Elvis", but got less airplay than the previous three RH albums instead of being the breakout album. That may be because this album was less alternative than its predecessors, and closer to classic rock. For example, "Serpent at the Gates of Wisdom" is a song that I can picture Dylan & the Band, or the Grateful Dead, playing. This is as accessible an album as Hitchcock has made, with great melodies and vocal harmonies, and no lyrics about bugs or fish.

The songwriting on this album includes a lot of Hitchcock's best. The mid-album sequence of "The Wreck of the Arthur Lee", "Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)", and "Serpent at the Gates of Wisdom" puts three of his best songs ever in a row. "Driving Aloud" is a straight-ahead rocker with a soaring chorus. "The Wreck of the Arthur Lee" takes a pretty ballad and sends it into orbit with a gorgeous instrumental break with trumpet and strings. "Arms of Love" and "The Moon Inside" are also great songs, and "The Yip Song" is as infectious as it is silly. The lyrics are sedate by Hitchcock's standards, but still include lines like "The first time she met you she hoped you were gay" and "Have you met my dead friend Seth?" None of the albums RH has done since have made anywhere near the impression on me as his work with the Egyptians. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of "Respect".

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This is my favorite Robyn Hitchcock album of them all. It contains Serpent At The Gates Of Wisdom my favorite Robyn Hitchcock song and one of my favorite songs period of all time. And as a bonus the rest of the album is really good too, The Yip Song, Wafflehead,etc.

I just received this album in the mail yesterday; the last time I'd heard it, was 5 and a half years ago on tape...the tape got mangled by the machine and that was that. Robyn Hitchcock has never sung a note in his life...and yet, if he'd never started making records, we'd all be the poorer for it. My fave track is probably 'Railway Shoes'; I love singing harmony with that song. Second fave would be 'Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)'.

There seems to be preoccupation with death on this one. "When I was Dead," is the most obvious reference, but the old man in the bizarrely catchy "Yip Song," a dead friend in "Driving Around," a father's ghost in "Railway Shoes," and the finality of "Then You're Dust," all seem to be focused on this theme. There is the musically adventurous collection of songs here, some very different even for Hitchcock, but there seems to be darkness as well. But I find it a satisfying darkness, Hitchcock's lyrics are simultaneously accessible and impenetrable and the real challenge is making them work for yourself. And when you get to "Wafflehead" you'll really enter a new category of love songs.

Robyn Hitchcock is one of England's most enduring contemporary singer/songwriters and live performers, although he's been branded eccentric and quirky during the course of his long career. Hitchcock started his recording career with the Soft Boys, a punk-era band specializing in melodic pop merged with comedic lyrics. His voice veers between John Lennon and Syd Barrett, helping to nurture his madman reputation, but his true influences lie more in English folk-rock; his guitar and vocal style and lyrical inanities recall Incredible String Band or Roy Harper. -- Denise Sullivan, All Music Guide
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Robyn Hitchcock is one of pop's great surrealists, an artist whose work has the appearance of familiarity yet none of its reassurance. While he often gets compared to poor old Syd Barrett (an acknowledged influence), this London native has closer relations outside the music world: Rene Magritte (logic-defying juxtapositions), Marcel Duchamp (dada absurdity), Edward Lear (whimsical, grotesque fabrications), Charles Addams (gloomy, cartoonish venom). Displaying a keen sense of irony as well as a dry, put-on (and put-upon) wit, Hitchcock's creations - in song, story, graphics and film - erect puzzling layers of incredibility that stymie presumptions about motivation or meaning. At his worst, when his penchant for self-amusement runs away with him (as it sometimes does), Hitchcock can be far too self-conscious in his pretense of eccentricity, making nonsense seem equally glib and random. At his best, however, he wields bizarre imagery brilliantly to make stealth runs at life's most challenging problems, elevating the mundane to provocative art. Not truly a rock musician and too arch to be a folkie, Hitchcock has recorded both solo and with a group ever since dissolving the influential and offbeat new wave band, the Soft Boys, in 1980.

Hitchcock made Respect with XTC production alumnus, John Leckie. It (mostly) paid off in a febrile high-tech album unlike anything in Hitchcock's background. With loads of lush vocal harmonies and digital drums, keyboards and computers, many of the arrangements downplay guitar for an artificial sound that works once you get used to it. Leckie smartly picks up on both sides of a divided set of songs, modestly respecting the serious/solemn ones ("Arms of Love," "Serpent at the Gates of Wisdom," "Then You're Dust") and letting the madcap reins out for Hitchcock's entertaining return to hallucinatory wordplay ("The Yip Song," "Railway Shoes," "The Wreck of the Arthur Lee," "When I Was Dead," the utterly ridiculous "Wafflehead"). Not a good place to start and not an album for narrow-minded fans, Respect is a tight squeeze through a narrow passage that leads Hitchcock safely out of one realm and into the grander possibilities of another. -- Ira Robbins, Trouser Press