Robyn Hitchcock I Often Dream Of Trains 1. Nocturne (Prelude) (1:41) 2. Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl (1:58) 3. Cathedral (3:42) 4. Uncorrected Personality Traits (1:44) 5. Sounds Great When You're Dead (3:22) 6. Flavour Of Night (2:57) 7. Ye Sleeping Nights Of Jesus (4:00) 8. Mellow Together (1:54) 9. Winter Love (2:39) 10. The Bones In The Ground (3:08) 11. My Favourite Buildings (2:48) 12. I Used To Say I Love You (4:31) 13. This Could Be The Day (2:45) 14. Trams Of Old London (3:29) 15. Furry Green Atom Bowl (3:16) 16. Heart Full Of Leaves (2:28) 17. Autumn Is Your Last Chance (3:30) 18. I Often Dream Of Trains (2:26) 19. Nocturne (Demise) (1:50) (_I Often Dream Of Trains_ was originally comprised of tks 1-7, 13-19, and issued as Midnight Music [UK] #CHIME 00.05, 9/84; Tks 9 & 10 were first issued on the 12" EP _The Bells Of Rhymney_, Midnight Music [UK] #DONG 8, 12/84; Tks 8-12 were later included as bonus tracks on the CD release of _I Often Dream Of Trains_ [same #], 10/86) Bonus Selections (Previously Unissued Demos): 20. Ye Sleeping Knights Of Jesus (4:13) 21. Sometimes I Wish I Was A Pretty Girl (1:52) 22. Cathedral (3:52) 23. Mellow Together (1:57) 24. The Bones In The Ground (1:53) All Songs Written By Robyn Hitchcock & Published by EMI VIrgin Songs, Inc. (BMI)/Two Crabs Music (PRS). Personnel: ROBYN HITCHCOCK: all instruments, except: CHRIS COX, bass & backing vocals (7, 11, 20) JAMES FLETCHER: sax (6) JAMES A SMITH: groans (20) Produced by ROBYN HTICHCOCK Engineers: PAT COLLIER, IAIN O'HIGGINS, PASCAL GABRIEL, JAMES A. SMITH (20), SIMON KUNATH (21-24) Recorded in London, 1984 (1-19), Smithsound, London, 1981 (20), & Simon Kunath's Barn, Sussex, Feb. 1983 (21-24) Reissue Produced for Release by JIM NEILL A&R Assistance: RICK GERSHON Research: PATRICK MILLIGAN & GARY PETERSON Legal Assistance: JON EARP Remastering: BILL INGLOT & KEN PERRY Reissue Art Direction: COCO SHINOMIYA Design: ART SLAVE Photography: ROSALIND KUNATH (cover) & TONY MOON Illustrations: ROBYN HITCHCOCK Special Thanks: PAUL BRADSHAW/MOD LANG OTHER ROBYN HITCHCOCK TITLES AVAILABLE FROM RHINO: Black Snake Diamond Role (R2 71820) - I Often Dream Of Trains (R2 71822) SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 1995: Fegmania! (R2 71837) - Gotta Let This Hen Out! (R2 71838) - Element Of Light (R2 71839) SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE MARCH 1995: Invisible Hitchcock (R2 71840) - Eye (R2 71841) - You & Oblivion (Rarities) (R2 71842) "I've always been obsessed with the idea of retirement." - Robyn Hitchcock Savaged, sickened, saddened by the debacle that became his second solo release, _Groovy Decay/Decoy_ (1982), Robyn Hitchcock settled into retirement, almost as if that had been the plan all along. "I was really crazy about Bob Dylan as a teenager, and subsequently about Syd Barrett," Robyn says. "One of the things they had in common [at that point] was that they didn't do anything. Dylan got to the top of the mountain and then vanished for seven years. "I never wanted to be a pop star. I wasn't too upset when the Soft Boys didn't take off, or even when my solo albums didn't work, because really all I wanted was to sit there like a middle-aged dreamer, staring out over the bridge into the valley and blowing smoke out of my mouth, reminiscing. When, in fact, there was nothing to reminisce about. I just wanted to cut out the middle man. I thought, "Why have a career? Why not just retire straight away?" And so he did retire, or told himself that's what he was up to. Which isn't to say he utterly gave up music. It was more like a strategic retreat, largely financed by his friend Captain Sensible, from The Damned. "He had a couple of hits with 'Happy Talk,' 'Glad It's All Over,' and 'Captain's Rap,' as it was called in the States. I wrote the words for all the flops, all the fillers on the album it seems. And Captain kept me going for quite a while. I did other odd bits and pieces as well, but nothing of note. I didn't do any gigs, and I decided it was all over and I wasn't going to perform anymore." Until, in May 1983, he collected James A. Smith - the Great One, an old friend whose presence looms behind much of Robyn's work - and headed for Simon Kunath's barn in the country to work out a batch of new songs. "I'd got increasingly frustrated with not doing anything of my own, not treading the boards, and I found myself stockpiling songs," he admits. Songs like the a cappella "Uncorrected Personality Traits" began to write themselves, unannounced. "Uncorrected Personality Traits" owes a debt to English music hall traditions (Flanders & Swan, say) and Tom Lehrer ("It's more like something from _Oklahoma_, probably," Robyn insists). "I found myself singing it one day and realized I'd better write it down," he recalls. "I'm not an active person, but I remember in that instance I was actually bending down to pick something up, and I started kind of muttering to myself and vibrating internally, and I realized that a song was coming through. I thought I was imagining it for a bit, and then I thought, 'Well, you're imagining this song. Why don't you just write it down? It'll become real." Hitchcock, Smith, and Kunath took over the top floor of a house and began torturing the downstairs neighbor (something about a particularly loud drum kit and impromptu late-night rehearsals.) The neighbor responded by calling the police and playing Motorhead records. It was all quite jolly and productive. ("Trash and "Pit of Souls" from thosedemos surfaced on _Invisible Hitchcock_.) "Eventually I'd stockpiled enough songs to go in and record a new album," Robyn says. "I wanted to make it for under L1,000; Groovy Decay cost L12,000, and it was a load of bland junk, basically. I thought I could make something reasonably lively for much less. So I went and made Trains in three or four days. It was great to be back in the studio after three years and not sit there with a bunch of musicians and all that. But I'd worked it all out on the portastudio, so I did know what I was doing. I was organized, and I wasn't drinking while we were recording." Rather than luring old friends into the studio or breaking in another set of new players, Robyn chose to record most of his third album with the spare accompaniment of his own guitar and piano. He was also back in the familiar confines of Alaska Studios, where the Soft Boys' _Underwater Moonlight_ and his own _Black Snake Diamond Role_ had been hatched. "By the time I got back to Alaska, three years had passed and what had been an eight-track studio had become 24-track, and the studio was now big enough to get up to ten people in it," Robyn recalls. "The only distinctive thing about it, apart from the ever-present 'Alaska stench,' is the fact that it's right under the Waterloo East railway arches, and every two or three minutes a train goes overhead. If you stand in certain directions you'll get this sound on your pickups. If you listen to 'I Often Dream Of Trains' there's a kind of whine on it, and that's because I'm facing the wrong way under the current. So the trains were literally present." The album title actually has little to do with those trains. Robyn had originaly intended the work to be called _Crystal Branches_ and was talked out of it. It's one of the few decisions on _I Often Dream Of Trains_ he didn't make. "_Trains_ is very much a result of _Groovy Decay/Decoy_. In a way, every time you make a record you are trying to correct the faults of the previous one. You could say that about a relationship if you wanted to." A few final songs were recorded in Clapham with Chris Cox, another old friend from the Cambridge scene. "Chris Cox is a carpenter, among other things. He also plays double bass, mandolin, and guitar. He's a very effortless musician, and he played with me on 'Ye Sleeping Knights Of Jesus.'" That song makes a nice companion piece to The Rolling Stones' "Faraway Eyes," a droll, uniquely British take on American coutnry music. It all came off rather well in the end. We had hoped to cap this new issue of _Trains_ with three songs from a late 1984 BBC session, but when the tapes were located they had deteriorated too greatly to be of use. However, in the course of the search, Robyn turned up some forgotten three-track demos recorded variously in the attic of James A. Smith and the barn of Simon Kunath. "_I Often Dream Of Trains_ and _Black Snake_ are the records I've enjoyed making the most. That's probably because they're the ones I've had the most control over. You bring other people in and you start to let them take over, and maybe that's not always such a good thing." - Grant Alden GET ON THE RHINO MAILING LIST Receive our special MAIL ORDER catalog featuring over a thousand critically acclaimed Rhino compact discs and cassettes. Send one dollar (check or money order, payable to Rhino Records Inc.) along with your name and address to: Rhino Catalog, 10635 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025-4900 [handwritten] Fire clattered Fegballs - Each, a painless ram Whole pincers gouge the clotted silence Tender and infinite And as we watch the wallpaper, So the fire appear >From wrinkled, stained beginnings, the bulges swell. Fire eyes! Fire heads! Fire orbs! Globes! Oh God of Bulbs! The wall is giving birth again. Fire infant slots, blinking and dreaming On behalf of the soft, electric house And we behold the gashed part and flutter the lunchtime and fire open eyes Reflect the four square window pane New eyes, ageing out of innocence Thyroid onions in a swelling wall ... ... the plants retreat, the cat sheds fur. The furniture doth knot itself. Here's Cyril! Gone to dust the balls: He whistles in on roller-skates And points his feather thing But stops - fire staring eyes turn off his clothes Leave him to flee in mouldering shame It's three o'clock - the withered hiss Can hardly hold the straining arts The room is silent Except for the sound of muscular contractions Then falls the first An orange flop And autumns pumpkin hisses to the floor A second squeezes from her slit And shoots across the room To splat, deflating on the soup-tureen. Now click, now clack, now Cyril's back - in Sophie's drag - With lipstick, stocking and a fag - or is it Sophie anyway? - Enter Renfrew, the soda butler. They prise the three remaining eyes Mellow and putrid >From their slots - They're ripe, and come out easily - And serve them in a nest of claws and lettuce Somewhere out of doors. Fire fegballs seeded, swollen, grown and gone Fire sutures in the flaming wall Fire fleshy tubes, hanging lines Vestigial, umbilical. They fall like pork scratchings And are swept away Fire maroon scars that slowly heal Till next time someone needs a meal ______________________________________________________________________________ Papa's Got A Brand New (Canvas) Bag Recycling plastic is a great idea. But, did you know that the plastics industry spends millions to perpetuate the myth that its products are recyclable so consumers won't learn the truth? Much of the waste plastic collected for "recycling" is actually shipped abroad for _dumping_ in Third World countries. The only environmentally responsible thing you can do with plastic is stop buying it. We at Rhino feel very strongly about this issue, that's why we want you to know about Greenpeace and their Toxic Trade Campaign to stop the menace of international waste trade. Reduce your use of plastic - especially one-use, throw-away containers - as much as possible. 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