1967

***** It’s funny and sparkling with a wild, questioning energy … One of the joys of this charming and compulsively perceptive work is the way the past loops, fountain-like, into the present and back; and how sharp his sense of the source remains. It is a kind of time-travel – Nicola Shulman * Telegraph *
Delightful … Dense with time-travel reminiscence and sharp musical analysis, 1967 comes closer than most to showing how music can switch on the lights, switch on a life – Victoria Segal * Mojo Magazine *
Wonderfully surreal turns * Spectator *
One could never accuse cult UK songwriter Robyn Hitchcock of being boring, and throughout 1967, he constantly surprises … poignant yet affable’ * Irish Times *

Hitchcock skilfully brings to life the turning point, for the younger generation at least, which was 1967 as post war Britain with its slightly curled egg and cress sandwiches took flight on psychedelic wings. Like a hipper version of Anthony Buckeridge’s schoolboy hero, Jennings, he adroitly describes the faintly
homoerotic undertones of boarding school life while his accounts of the records and musicians he discovers vividly capture the excitement and adventure of the music of the time. That he does so in his unique style, droll and with the occasional whiff of whimsy and surrealism, familiar to anyone who has seen him live, is the icing on the cake. One can easily picture him telling any of these tales in between songs on stage … a delightful read

1967 is evocative and eccentric. Even non-fans would find it entertaining … When it comes to
writing a page-turner, Hitchcock passes the exam with flying colours

Robyn Hitchcock is a rock ‘n’ roll surrealist. Born in London in 1953, he describes his songs as “paintings you can listen to”. As much a child of Dali, de Chirico and J. G. Ballard as of his 1960s musical heroes, he is a master of the absurd, revelling in the beauty of the unexpected.

His first band, the Soft Boys (1976-81), has remained an influential art-rock touchstone for generations of musicians. Hitchcock has floated at a tangent to the mainstream for five decades, and his songs have been performed by R.E.M., the Replacements, Neko Case, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Lou Barlow, Uncle Tupelo, Vic Chesnutt, Grant-Lee Phillips, Sparklehorse and Suzanne Vega with the Grateful Dead, among others.

He came of age in the 1960s while he attended Winchester College, an eccentric hothouse boarding school in the south of England. Hitchcock lives in Nashville with his wife Emma Swift and their two cats, Ringo and Tubby.

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