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

I definitely think that's what he's saying!

It sounds mostly like "woop" to me, but it doesn't really sound exactly the same every time he says it. I decided it wasn't really a word a long time ago, but for some reason that doesn't stop me from trying to figure it out every time I listen to it. I definitely prefer the mysterious "woop" to the concrete "wreck," which is just too disturbing.

 

For such a great album overall, it's a kind of strange choice for the first proper song you hear. I like the music, obviously it's kind of a one joke thing lyrically. 3/5

 

Is it? There are verses, and it's not clear they're just there to prop up the joke of the chorus....it seems more to me like the verses are expressing some feelings, which are punctuated by the sort of humorous chorus

 

I sometimes hear 'Droop', but I don't think it makes any sense, does it

 

That's a fair response. For me sometimes the juxtapositions in Robyn's songs really land, but sometimes they don't. Like Balloon Man works for me because it all hangs on the "slow divorce" line. This one not so much.

 

Pretty Girl- 4.5. So many others have hit on the rush and off kilter/on edge
energy of the music and his singing and I agree.

I could hear Beefheart doing a fine cover of this.

 

That just reminds me of a line from an old Woody Allen film, something about if I was a girl I'd just be feeling my.... which was a bit wrong to start with, and now....

 

Sometimes I Wish......not much to add to what's already been said: the chugging guitars +psychotic piano +messed up lyrics = brilliant. 4.5/5

 

I always heard it as "look at myself in the shower", but pronounced in a bit of an odd way. The last time round I hear "stab myself" in one if the double tracked vox - reference to 'Psycho' presumably?

I agree it's probably meant to be a bit obscure and undeciperable. If this was a Beatles thread we'd all be playing it backwards to find the hidden message!

 

“Sometimes I Wish...” - 3.5/5. It seems an odd choice for the first proper song on this album. I think I’d like this better if it was on another album or buried in the middle of this one. It hits a different tone from the reflective mood of so much of the rest. After listening to this LP enough, it does find its place, but I still think it would sound much more at home in, say, Black Snake Diamond Role than IODT.

Always wondered if the difficult to parse word is intentional or not, so I’m glad others are similarly mystified. Has Robyn ever been asked about the lyric by any chance?

 

I hear “shag” there!

 

Our votes for "Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl"

1-0
2-0
3-1
4-2
5-7
Average: 4.25

 

Today's song is "Cathedral", written and produced by Robyn Hitchcock.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/6tqMDyb3VLzgrQmmRp4OH3?si=CaJbvoy_SLCEclAXMSYi0g
Lyric.

A demo of "Cathedral", recorded in 1983 was included in the 1995 reissue of I Often Dream of Trains and a live version was released on I Often Dream of Trains in New York.

 

Cathedral - 5. The song is in two parts for me. At the end of each part a new melody is introduced moving the song onto another level. Wonderful stuff.

 

This song is deceptively arty in its construction and it's really very beautiful, heartbreaking. There's a deep feeling of loss that permeates this entire album, and this song really feels like that, not only the loss of a human but the loss of time, and for me the last stanza really hits home in a strange way:

Now the clock is beating fast
Every moment wanders past
And fades away,
Then comes back another day
Do I go or do I stay inside your mind?

I'm not entirely sure what he means, and I feel like analyzing it might break the spell of these beautiful words, but for me it speaks of someone he's lost himself in and subsequently lost and maybe this is a song and, largely, an album about letting the past go.

5/5

 

There's an awful lot of space here too. The emphasis on echoed acoustic guitar is rather like Joni Mitchell's Hejira album (of 76), and the introspection is more philosophy here than Joni's confessionals.
Is this about the relationship with Airborne Alice again? Or more general? hmmmm...
Anyway, 5/5.

 

I don't know, but I did once ask him about 'If I was man enough I'd come on your stump'.

 

Cathedral - I’ve never thought of this as being about someone he lost, but as someone he walked away from because they were too vapid. The cathedral is the person’s vast, empty mind. It’s a beautiful, melancholy song, yet I always find myself laughing out loud at the lines:

There behind your open face, lies an awful lot of space.

Maybe inappropriate laughter? I dunno, but it gets me every time.

The echoing sound of the piano is gorgeous.

4/5

 

As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of his piano songs and this is a wonderful example. Everything works here; the piano itself, the guitar and the backing vocals. For me, the lyrics express the reflection on a lost love with just a hint of regret. The parting appears to make practical sense but there's a gnawing doubt that won't go away. The real puzzle for me is the use of the word "toilet" which jars with the rest of the narrative. Maybe it indicated that the mind in question is a bit like a TARDIS, with dimensions far beyond what is on the surface. After all RH was a massive Dr Who fan as a teenager.

 

It does seem a bit jarring; still it give me this impression of someone who is a bit of a mess on the outside but who has deep and beautiful depths inside.

 

What did he say?

I asked him about the line in "1970 in Aspic" that drives me crazy: "Separate dressing rooms with one connecting doorway
Through the hall" which drives me crazy--how can there be a hall, if there's one connecting doorway?

His answer didn't satisfy me--"Architecturally you're right, but metaphorically..." etc.

 

Right, meaning I think that there are vast spaces in the mind that belie the relatively small space the head/brain occupies. Also of course the difference between the majesty of the cathedral vs. the prosaic nature of the toilet stall.

I never thought of the person as vapid (though that may be correct), but that he was trying to enter into someone else's perspective and getting lost in it.

Yeah great song, 4.6/5

 

Cathedral - Beautiful track, the reverb/echo creates the feeling of being inside a cathedral (of the mind).
5/5

 

The double tracked vocals and bass in second half are two choices I adore.

 

Nothing that I can remember. The extended Soft Boys were in a pub in Cambridge in 1994 for the reunion gig there. It got lost in the general banter.