He played that song (accompanying himself on guitar, though) the first time I saw him in solo-acoustic mode, during the “Eye” tour in 1990 or so. I still get chills thinking about it.

We have a small “jamming” session at a general store near my town here in southern Appalachia. It is led by what I call the “group nazi.” Like the soup nazi, he demands that the group plays only pre-1930s mountain music (and likewise, witheringly shoots down requests from observers). It is sad and funny.

And speaking of Americana and those across the pond, Robyn has been doing some work with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Good stuff.

I was even able to pull him aside before the show and request a song.

But best of all, he was seeing a beautiful young blonde at the time, not much older than a college grad. She apparently brought her parents to see her new beau perform.

During one of his songs, which included fairly explicit lyrics, he sang directly and lovingly to this young girl sitting inbetween her parents.

Hello!

I obviously had a bootleg of some sort. Scroll down this page, there is a notice about halfway down with names and places. But nothing mentioned in his online store.

You are understandably confused, but I have it on good authority that the “Richard and Linda” mentioned in the book were cows . . .

The songs were performed very straight…RH:”Don’t expect 15 minute jams here, it was tough enough learning 30 songs. The drummer had never heard the album”. But performed very well. RH was at his least, umm eccentric, and most charming…the stage chatter made the show. (Intro to “Piggies”…RH:”Here is another of George’s lovesongs to the human race.”) I would really like to see a film, there was stuff going on during “Revolution #9” that had the audience falling apart.

I watched most of the Jonathan Demme movie, which is an honest introduction to Hitchcock, but perhaps not the most accessible. Looked like a weirdo to me. But I guess a lovable weirdo.

Slightly on topic, this Saturday afternoon I arranged to listen to a Robyn Hitchcock benefit concert from last June for Doctors without Borders. With a backup band and friends, he performed the Beatles White Album in its entirety.
It was two hours of very good music; often hilarious (walking the width of the stage saying “Number 9. Number 9.”) and a jolly good time; and as the crowd sang “Goodnight” along with the band, it seemed suddenly less a stunt than some kind of Work of Love.

I felt very warm and grateful toward England for a little while.