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

"Take Off Your Bandages" - def has the VU rhythm and guitars going, but nicely subverts it at the end with a Beatle-y finale. Even though it's long, it doesn't feel that way, as Lance notes, because of the energy to it. 4/5

 

Bandages is groovy 3.9/5

 

Our votes for "Take Off Your Bandages"

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Average: 3.98

 

Today's song is "The President [2020 Version]", written by Robyn Hitchcock, and produced by Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift.

Robyn Hitchcock – The President (2020 version) Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

Robyn Hitchcock: vocals, guitars

Patrick Sansone: 12-string guitar, mellotron bass, triangle
Emma Swift: backing vocals

This is a remake and rewrite of "The President", which was a 1986 era song inspired by Ronald Reagan. This 2020 song is inspired by that one guy, the president who was president before the president who is president now. I'm sure you have heard of him. His name escapes me.

This single was released in 2020 on a limited (500 copies) vinyl seven inch (red and black) and digital -- you vinyl people can still purchase the physical single on band camp. Ten copies left.

 

A pleasant enough re-take on the vastly superior original with lyrics that any sane human being can relate to. I'm not surprised that a limited edition of 500 failed to sell out; it's hardly essential.

The President (2020) 2.5/5.

 

Really rather good, though certainly the original was a better listen. I suppose RH felt more involved being in the land - this President is very much one person at one time, where the original had a distant, dystopian vibe to it. He's good at making political points in the show banter, but it almost feels like wasted effort here - the person concerned not really worth it, and now hopefully in the dustbin of mystery. 3/5

 

Ugh-it sounds nice but the lyrics are kind of flat on the schnoz this time 2.3/5

 

Musically enjoyable but the song loses power when it loses it's applicability to all times as the original had. There's not much protest here and personally this serves as a pointless reminder of...that guy.

2.5/5

 

The President - 2.5/5 - Yeah, a bit on the nose and will not age as well as the original of this tune.

 

"The President" - the original had a paranoia and doom feel that worked better, in part because of the arrangement, but also because it wasn't tied to a specific individual, even though it was clearly inspired by Reagan. You could imagine it as being about "now" (c. 1986), but also as being about the future. This version is so tied to The Former Guy, whom no one in their right mind really wants to have to think about ever again - the impending doom was so very ever present (for four years, and by habit even afterward, I obsessively checked my phone as soon as I woke up to see how much he had f**ked with us overnight), that I can't imagine wanting to listen to it ever again. I don't know when Robyn recorded it, but it doesn't help that he didn't get it up on Bandcamp until after the election last year, when it was no longer timely. On it's own, it's not a bad recording, though the original far surpasses it, and the lyrics are good, if, as others point out, too on the nose, but they also don't say anything new about what's his face that we didn't already know. 2.5/5.

 

For a minute today, I thought about buying one of those last ten copies, just to be a completist (though my RH collection is far from complete), but then I acknowledged that I would never listen to a single about a person that I never want to think about again, and put down the mouse.

 

For that reason alone, I didn’t even listen to it once.

 

President -- fairly pointless, tbh. 2/5

 

Our votes for "The President [2020 Version]"

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Average: 2.5

 

Today's song is "The Cross, the Dollar & the Gun", written by Robyn Hitchcock, and produced by Robyn Hitchcock and Pat Sansone.
Available on band camp:
The Cross, The Dollar & The Gun, by Robyn Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock: vocals, guitar

The B-side of "The President [2020 version]."

 

A very lightweight and rather glib musing on America.

The Cross, the Dollar & the Gun 1.5/5.

 

Hardly the most nuanced of social critiques -- sounds a bit like the smug rantings of a Continental European undergraduate, aka, what ì refer to as "Euro-socialists", which is disappointing for an intellect like Robyn's -- and melodically uninteresting.

It's still not as pointless as "The President [2020 Version]" but it's also less interesting. Preaching to choirs is never really a good look for me.

2.3/5

 

"The Cross, the Dollar, and the Gun" - this is what I refer to as a "bumper sticker" song, in that the idea or sentiment can be easily expressed in a bumper sticker, and it would have saved all of us the time of listening to it if only the writer had just left a stack of them at the merch table for free. It's a not-inaccurate but also very facile look at an aspect of the US, not dissimilar to what Barack Obama said when he was first running for President:

Obama angers midwest voters with guns and religion remark

The problem is, as expressed here, the song doesn't even have that level of nuance, and, as Lance points out, the music is boring. I feel like Robyn felt that, if he was releasing "The President" as a single, he need another political song on the b-side, and this was all he had. 1.5/5.

 

Cross -- also not that great. 2/5

 

Our votes for "The Cross, the Dollar, and the Gun"
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Average: 1.825

 

Today's song is "On The Beach Where the Sun Doesn't Move". This was released in 2020 as part of a split single, with an I Was A King on the flip side.

 

I'd never heard this one before but I'm glad I have now; it's excellent. Most of the things I like about RH are here, melody, jangle, a broody edge and some great lyrics. Sounds like an outtake from the RH album to me, and wouldn't have sounded out of place there.

How on earth does a song as good as this one end up thrown away on the flip side of another group's single? A serendipitous joy.

On The Beach Where the Sun Doesn't Move. 4/5.

 

It's pretty good - but I'm not too excited by it. I thought the lyrics were a bit mundane, sorry - in that vein Robyn has of making generalisations which don't say very much. Bring back the lobsters. One comment on YT said it sounds like the Soft Boys. It doesn't. 2.5/5

(I'm not tempering my judgements based on age, career trajectory, etc, just absolute value.)

 

Cross--urgh feels long and sounds good but the lyrics urgh 2/5

Beach--this is great great, don't know how hard it will stick though 3.8/5

 

Beach -- first time hearing it (didn't know it even existed!) Would love for it to be on the next album to hear a cleaned-up version. 4/5