Robyn Hitchcock'n'the Egyptians Queen Elvis 1. Madonna of the Wasps 2. The Devils Coachman 3. Wax Doll 4. Knife 5. Swirling 6. One Long Pair of Eyes 7. Veins of the Queen 8. Freeze 9. Autumn Sea 10. Superman 11. Veins of the Queen (Royal Mix) 12. Freeze (Shatter Mix) Madonna of the Wasps Andy Metcalfe - backing vocals Peter Buck - guitar The Devils Coachman Morris Windsor - electric guitar & percussion Andy Metcalfe - acoustic guitar Quartet Zu - strings Audrey Riley - cello Jocelyn Pook - viola Sally Herbert - violin Sonia Slany - violin Harvey Brough and John Miller - string arrangement Wax Doll Andy Metcalfe - acoustic guitar Peter Buck - electric guitar strings as above Robyn Hitchcock - backing vocals Knife Robyn Hitchcock - piano in concept Andy Metcalfe - fire extinguisher & percussion Swirling Peter Buck - guitar Robyn Hitchcock - backing vocals One Long Pair of Eyes Andy Metcalfe - backing vocals & triangle Robyn Hitchcock - backing vocals Veins of the Queen Andy Metcalfe - backing vocals Morris Windsor - backing vocals Robyn Hitchcock - backing vocals Dave Woodhead - trumpet & trumpet score Freeze Dave Woodhead - trumpet Peter Buck - guitar Robyn Hitchcock - backing vocals Morris Windsor - backing vocals Andy Metcalfe - backing vocals Autumn Sea Superman Andy Metcalfe - backing vocals All songs written by Robyn Hitchcock All songs (c) 1989 Two Crabs Music (PRS) All rights reserved Unauthorized reproduction prohibited Musicians: Robyn Hitchcock - guitar & lead vocals Andy Metcalfe - bass & keyboards Morris Windsor - drums Producers: Robyn Hitchcock / Andy Metcalfe Recording Engineer: Jessica Corcoran Mixed by: Andy Metcalfe / Pat Collier Mastered by: Arnie Acosta at A&M Mastering Studios Studio: Greenhouse Studio Management: John Lay for Talent Bank Fan Club: Pleasure of the Aching Void Sandra & Trudy (Fegmaniax) 158-15 79th Street Howard Beach, NY 11010 Peter Buck appears courtesy of Warner Bros. Records. Art Direction: Jeff Gold / Robyn Hitchcock Design: F Ron Miller / Peter Grant Photography: George Wright He had buried his dog with great difficulty. Even now, one of its paws jutted out of the pneumatic soil, as if the earth was crying - "Give her one more chance! She's just tired! She needs you. Take her home and start again" - but the facts indicated otherwise. The dog had been dead for a week, and dying for almost as long as he had had her. When did she die? As he tried to scrape the damp clods of clay from his boots with the pitifully undersize shovel, he couldn't remember her death. The phone had been ringing incessantly, and he had spent a lot of time in the other room. She might have died even before he had stopped taking her for her walks. In the distance, a small but powerful engine buzzed behind the long black bleak pyramid. A tap jutting out of the ground on a rusty enamel pipe dripped sporadically. It was November. Needless to say, the sun wasn't shining. It mush have been there, behind layer after layer of motionless cloud. Above the cloud, the motorcycle bore its rider in a gleaming bundle. The sunlight flared on her helmet. It was two weeks since her last migraine, and giving up the headache pills had improved things. Beneath her feet the clouds roared in a white, soundless sponge. Her face was set clean and calm beneath her goggles; on her back, a violin case struggled like a papoose. She dipped towards the ground. As she entered the first whiskers of cloud, two men in bowler hats emerged from the diaphanous white froth on similar machines and sputtered past her. A photograph fell out of her pocket as she disappeared. There was a gaping gash in the side of his black coat, into which he thrust his shovel. It fitted in obligingly, and was seen no more. In the distance, behind the black pyramid, a lynx curled back her teeth and howled. He walked with his face to the ground, his boots growing into boats of mud as each step attracted more. Suddenly the phone rang in one of the abandoned kiosks nearby. He lumbered over to answer it. "Hi! This is Brent Queegwoz from the Washington Embalmer. Is it true that you're a bit weird?" "Not if I can help it mate", he grunted and hung up. It looked, for once, as if it might snow before Christmas. He closed the door of the phone box - thankfully it was still glowing - and looked across the graveyard. Twilight brought out all sorts of colours that weren't really there. The sky seemed purple and pregnant; the dull mud was suffused with ochre and orange; and the stiff, metallic reeds that punctuated it were strangely blue. He just had to scream. A long endless high scream that scoured the headstones, the ranks of muscle men and sphinxes and angels, the pious crosses with their sterile re-enactment of Jesus's agony, the greenhouses of the dead, and the huge alabaster quiff with sideburns that hovered over one particular grave. It swept away behind the pyramid and deafened the lynx. Screw the dead, he thought. They should be so lucky. The alabaster quiff seemed to hiccup in agreement. A light but firm humming overhead droned into his ears, sapping his release, his sense of power. It was one of the coastal planes. It passed, close but invisible, above him, and he realised to his astonishment, that he still held the dog leash in his right hand. He looked down the leash to where the collar would be, half expecting - SPTHUNT! - The violin case landed at his feet. But before he had time to even recoil, he felt the ground shudder beneath him, like the tugging of an underground root beneath his feet. The phone rang again and he ignored it. Following the line of the rumbling earth, his eyes focussed on the dog's grave, as yet unmarked, amidst the encroaching tombs. There was no time to even gasp. The dead dog shot through the earth and spun around, shaking the soil from her pelt as if it were water. Her tongue stuck out and drooled, and she landed briefly on her feet. They looked at each other, but before either man or dog could establish what that look might mean, she shot backwards up into the clouds. The womain in the air circled elegantly towards the setting sun. On her back, the dog slept peacefully. Despite the blistering wind, she slipped off her goggles and lowered them over the dog's head. It was a handsome dog, and it would be very happy in the place where she was taking it. Down in the mud the phone rang again. "Hi! How are you?" It was the answerphone. "Can you hold on a sec, please?" He left it off the hook, dangling like a garrotted corpse inches above the mud. He picked up the violin case and cradled it in his tattoed sleeves. Flicking back the catches, he opened the lid to reveal a very long bar of soap in the form of a submarine, resing on regal maroon velvet. On close examination, the submarine had a tiny silver dagger amidships: and on close examination still, the submarine turned out to be a wax doll. It was a bland, sexless figure. It could have been from the distant past or the remote future. He though of the long soundproof corridors in the abandoned mental hospital at Friern Barnet. But he knew exactly how to operate this doll. He merely pulled the dagger out of the stomach and stuck it into the feet. Suddenly all the phones rang at once. A ray of sunlight fell onto the black pyramid, and there was a colossal rumbling from the graveyard, as if once again the underground root were being tugged. A spiral of white mist twirled into the hold where had buried his dog. The first graves began to open. He approached the spewing tombs, still cradling the violin case. The nearest bore the inscription 'Have a Nice Day', and suddenly disgorged a company executive in an advanced state of decomposition, but still held more or less together by his Armani suit. He nodded to the lone watcher; "Catch you later, alrighty?" He muttered between teeth and earth, and stumbled towards the phone booths. A familiar ringing, but muffled, came from below a slate headstone that read 'Back in Five Minutes'. A ghastly lacquered hand tore at the yielding mud and within seconds a female ghoul was yammering into a portable vodaphone. Grave by grave, they staggered forth, dragged rotting back into this world by the need to communicate. The setting sun briefly jabbed through the cloud, scoring into the black pyramid and splashing the giant alabaster quiff with cold orange light. The man in the shabby coat with the violin case squelched over towards the quiff. It hovered, expectantly, over an open mausoleum. The other dead put down their phones and crept towards this fateful grave. A black plastic bubble oozed out of the pyramid and lay motionlessly against the sunset. The pyramid shuddered and a second bubble slid forth, bumping into the first, which drifted a little higher in the pink sky and then stopped. Fingers thick as sausages, bound with gypsy rings, hauled the thing in the green dress out of the pit. Seaweed dreadlocks bound themselves in a crusty spiral above a dough-caked skull, peeled red lipstick showing an unmistakable grin. It was her alright. "Well, if it ain't l'il ol' pinky-boy hisseyalf!", she drawled pleasantly. "Come and nestle next to yo' rottin' mamma. Ah bin lonely in this earth without you." She pushed herself up on one arm, which caused her collarbone to just teasingly through her green shift. The dead clustered around attentively. The scar of sunset burned against the frosty twilight. "Come hither, ma li'l bundle, and wrap your flesh around mah bowens. Don't you got a kiss for me, lahk you done once?" Yes, but you weren't dead then, he thought. And then cane the second scream. It emanated from every corner of the horizon, from the stony despair about him, born of the formal chaos of life. He threw off his overcoat, rolled back his sleeves and advanced on the green madonna. His mouth curled up in a lipless grin, his mouth was open and the scream passed through it. The green madonna seemed a bit demoralized. "Now look here, pinky-boy", she began, but at that point her head fell off. This time things really began to perk up. The dead began to seep into the ground, waving feebly as they melted into the soil. The soil became chocolate; and soon the dead were little more than milky smears that decorated the surface with whorls of bonemeal. The green madonna shrivelled fast, her skull clicking defiantly beside her deflating torso, with one hand remaining large and pawing at his feet. He tried to stamp on it, but it darted nervously away amongst the tombs. It was completely dark when he awoke. Thank God! It was all a dream. The naked policeman on the floor looked particularly reassuring. He glanced above his bed. There as usual hung the old red setter, his nose muzzled, with a thermometer jutting out of each nostril. On the wall, the moose's head opened and closed its jaws mechanically, ever so often pulling up its lips so that its tongue could sweep the grains out from between his teeth. As the blue dawn came, the pink tongue was swarming with ants. He climbed out of bed, ducking to avoid the suspended dog, avoiding the mirror, and pulled a goldfish out from between the lips of the naked lawman. It was still alive, so he ate it without any mustard. His door creaked open, and stuck his head into the long white corridor. There was no-one around. He could go free. But he decided, after all, to stay in his cell. There was comfort in the familiar environment. Better the Devil you know, he mouthed silently to himself. (c) 1989 A&M Records, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. A&M Records, Inc., PO Box 118, Hollywood, CA 90078