The Entroporium

Robyn Hitchcock has rallied from some really terrible sartorial choices to pair up with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings on his new album, Spooked. It’s far from a perfect record, but the tracks that hit home are really lovely and, well, spooky.

Today’s sample is the first cut, a love song by a lonely man to his television, pulling on one of my worst fears: to reach a point in life (illness? death? business travel?) where I’m stuck with nothing to do but watch TV. This track captures the feeling; it’s funny, poignant, a little scary.

Isn’t it amazing how when you see an abandoned TV on the street that it looks defiled, like it’s somehow lost its mystique?

[Soundtrack]
Robyn Hitchcock – Television.mp3

Robyn’s spooky story about how this recording came to be:

My wife Michele turned me onto Hell Among The Yearlings and Time (The Revelator), so we were thrilled to get tickets for their London show last September. It was a brilliant affair; Gillian and David walked on stage carrying their guitars and never once used pick-ups on them. They played music that seemed to come from no particular era, but was rooted back centuries ago. The deeper your roots, the longer your branches. One of the many highlights for me was a new song called “Miss Ohio.”

Afterwards I met David in the bar and he told me that I had signed his guitar at an in-store in Boston in 1989. It transpired that they both used to come and see the Egyptians and me, way back in the 1980s. In parting, we agreed it would be great to attempt playing together, and he gave me some of their phone numbers.

A month later, someone sent a photo in to David Greenberger, who runs my web-site. It showed a beauty contest, where the new Miss Ohio was being crowned: her name was Robyn Hitchcock. Michele suggested I call Gillian and David to tell them this. I spoke to Gillian, who duly introduced “Miss Ohio” onstage in New York with this story.

Next thing they knew, they were recording together!