Wey Wey Hep a Hole Ding Dong: Robyn Hitchcock the song by song, album by album thread

I was excited to listen to Propellor Time again and see if I enjoyed it more than in the past. However I still see it as the least of the Venus 3 albums by a very wide margin. As before, I think Ole Tarantula is one of his very best albums.

 

Propellor Time - 4/5 - At the time I thought of this as a slight step down from the other V3 albums, but relistening to it was a pleasant surprise. A couple of real standout tunes and everything else is also pretty good. I think Robyn often benefits from having a band to work on the arrangements with him.

 

Propellor Time as a whole -- 3/5. Agree it's the weakest of the Venus 3 albums (but, man, it would sure be easy to have put together a "best of" from these 3 albums that would knock your socks off!) That said: "Sickie Boy" has not left my brain since the revisit a few days ago! We Love You, indeed!

 

Propellor Time - as with Goodnight, Oslo, while I've enjoyed these songs to varying degrees, I find that I can remember very little about them, and the only one I can actually recall in my mind is "Sickie Boy", which Robyn had to go and ruin with his spoken credits. This is another one where the sum is weaker than the parts, and the parts aren't very strong. I never reach for any of the Venus 3 albums, but this is the least of them. 2.5/5.

 

Another “indie rock” release by which I mean that it’s a bit ramshackle and shoddenly sequenced and there is a general air of not really taking it seriously as an album.

Having said that, there is not a bad song on it and a few stone cold Robyn classics. Maybe the overall effect is lesser than the other Venus 3 albums but song for song I think it’s just as strong, though it’s New Morning esque leanings at times are it’s most tiresome traits.

(I go through phases with Dylan. My current phase is he bores me a bit.)

4.2/5

 

Bob Dylan has always bored me, as has Syd Barrett, so when Robyn goes for more direct homages to them, I tend to lose interest.

 

I go through phases of utter worship and blah, they last ten years or so typically; currently in the blah phase. However, I must say some of his less famous songs as covered by others (say Fairport Convention, Joan Baez, or a recently discovered Tim Finn take on "I Shall Be Released" never get old.)

 

I've always enjoyed a bit of Bob but never in a fanatical way. I've got most of his albums and they range from the sublime to the ridiculous but I still think overall his batting average is pretty high. When Murder Most Foul and then Rough And Rowdy Ways dropped at the start of the pandemic, it felt to me almost like a gift from above and I went back through a lot of his stuff which was a fascinating journey. As a result I became obsessed with Blood On The Tracks, which I'd heard loads of time before but never really immersed myself in properly until then. I think it's one of the greatest albums ever made and as he himself said, "every one of them words rang true".

 

Yes that is an album that I never tire of. In general I prefer his late sixties early seventies period. Oh Mercy too. Maybe I’m due for a re-immersion.

But I am not doing a song-by-song thread!

 

I really like Desire and Street Legal and Time Out Of Mind is well worth a revisit. I love the mid Sixties live recordings and some of the Bootleg Series stuff is great too.

Don't blame you for not attempting a song-by-song thread. It would probably outlive some of us (myself included).

 

I love pretty much all Dylan and I'm not itching to see a song by song thread about him.

 

I love this cover of "I'll Keep It with Mine" by Fairport:
But Bob himself has never done anything for me.

 

That's a good one, for sure. And I think Sandy Denny's original songs are very very influenced by Bob Dylan, too.

There are literally dozens of covers out there that are incredible. Some songs by Bob can't be covered, especially the rock ones ("Visions of Johanna", for one: Robyn gave it a try, but it's basically uncoverable, IMO. "Idiot Wind" is uncoverable. There are many like that.)

But others, either the more folk-based songs, or some of his country-ish songs really sound good with other singers. I ought to check out that Emma Swift record, she probably has at least a few good ones in there.

Joan Baez's version of "Love Is A Four-Letter Word" is sublime, and I'm not even a fan of Joan Baez. It makes me weep, just thinking about it, my eyes well up. .IN fact, I don't think Dylan ever even released his own version unless it's one of his ten thousand archival releases.

 

Our votes for Propellor Time.

1-0
2-0
3-3
4-3
5-0
3.6429

 

Studio Albums, color*-coded for your enjoyment:

Note: I've now added Propellor Time

A Can of Bees 3
Underwater Moonlight 4.7
Invisible Hits 3.9 (song average)
Only the Stones Remain 3.7457 (song average)
Black Snake Diamond Role 4.275
Groovy Decay/Groovy Decoy 2.1571
I Often Dream of Trains 4.8574
Fegmania! 4.3385
Element Of Light 4.37
Invisible Hitchcock 3.4573 (song average)
Globe of Frogs 3.1278
Queen Elvis 4.2167
EYE 3.5643
Perspex Island 2.9929
Respect 4.3786
You and Oblivion 3.7284 (Song average)
Moss Elixir 3.925
Jewels For Sophia 3.1556
A Star For Bram 3.24
Shadow Cat 3.0415 (Song average)
Nextdoorland 3.3
Side Three 3.425
Luxor 1.55
Spooked 3.0857
Olé! Tarantula 4.4188
Goodnight, Oslo 3.6722
Propellor Time 3.6429

Ranked:

1. I Often Dream of Trains
2. Underwater Moonlight
3. Olé! Tarantula
4. Respect
5. Element of Light
6. Fegmania!
7. Black Snake Diamond Role
8. Queen Elvis
9. Moss Elixir
10. Invisible Hits
11. Only the Stones Remain
12. You And Oblivion
13. Goodnight Oslo
14. Propellor Time
15. EYE
16. Invisible Hitchcock
17. Side Three
    
18. Nextdoorland
19. A Star For Bram
20. Jewels For Sophia
21. A Globe of Frogs
22. Spooked
23. Shadow Cat
24. A Can of Bees
25. Perspex Island
26. Groovy Decay/Groovy Decoy
27. Luxor

7 albums (counting Trolley Bus) and one EP to go!

*u[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

Today I'm going to start on Trolley Bus 2. An oddly titled album that was released digitally, for free, on Robyn's webpage on December 21st, 2010. as a Christmas gift. It was an album of covers, strictly , some of them outtakes from Propellor Time. And not all of them featured Robyn on lead vocals.

I plan to go through these songs two a day and skip the non-Robyn sung tracks (unless they don't stream, in which case, screw it, I"ll just move on.

The tracklist was:

1. Be Here Now (George Harrison)
2. Blue Moon of Kentucky (Bill Monroe)--Propellor Time outtake, lead vocal by Nick Lowe
3. Candyman (The Grateful Dead) (recorded in Nashville with the Tennesee Crawdads
4. Changes (David Bowie)-- recorded "3 King Halloween 2010 MSF benefit"
5. Copper Kettle (Bob Dylan) -- outtake from Propellor Time
6. I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash) Propellor Time outtake, lead vocal Scott McCaughey
7. Life On Mars (Bowie) recorded "3 King Halloween 2010 MSF benefit"
8. Pink Moon in C (Nick Drake) -- outtake
9. Quicksand (Bowie) recorded "3 King Halloween 2010 MSF benefit"
10. Song for Bob Dylan (Bowie) recorded "3 King Halloween 2010 MSF benefit"
11. Very Cellular Song (The Incredible String Band) Lead vocal Mike Heron at Petsival 2009

So on September 14th, I plan to start on Tromsø, Kaptein.

Never mind...let's just rate the whole album at once today: most of the songs don't seem to stream on YouTube, sadly.

 

Um, I rated Propellor Time 5/5.

 

I think I counted it, just write the numbers down wrong. Will recount it soon.

 

Trolley Bus 2 is actually quite a charming release, especially considering it was released for free.
Very laid back, some very good covers there.

Sort of Robyn's Beach Boys Party!

It is an uneven listen. Some of the studio Venus 3 songs are really, really worth it...(well, "worth it". It was free. He could fart into a cup and that would be worth it. )

Others are pretty bad, but overall it sounds like what it's supposed to be: a "for fans only" present that has a sense of laidback, ramshackle fun.

3.3/5

 

Weirdly, I did count your 5, but somehow miscalculated (I bet it happens a lot). The average for the album is 3.6

 

I've never heard this, but it reminds me that I walked into a bar in Seattle once and happened across Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck playing Johnny Cash covers.

 

TBH -- I can't remember the last time I played Trolley Bus 2 to rate it because it's all covers. I'll have to give it a full spin this weekend.

 

Somehow I didn't know this existed, I had downloaded a copy somewhere but definitely not from Robyn's site around Christmas 2010. I'll have to give a more serious listen now (actually not sure if I ever listened to it before or not).

 

I'm not sure how I missed this release. I must have dropped the ball on keeping tabs on Mr. Hitchcock's site at the time. Doing a cursory search comes up with a couple of sites that used to link to a download but don't anymore. Hardly surprising given that it's over ten years ago but still disappointing.

Oh, well. One that got away.

 

Trolley Bus -- now that I've listened to it for the first time in ages -- it's OK for a bunch of covers (some live and some not). The Bowie covers are really good, but the rest is just OK. 2/5 (because I can't rate it higher than any of the Venus 3 albums).