Robyn Hitchcock - Zinc Pear - Non-Album Tracks (1981)

I've already posted a couple of recent Robyn Hitchcock albums I've made, plus a bunch of stuff by the Soft Boys (the Hitchcock-led band from the late 1970s). Now it's time to start dealing with Hitchcock's career in a more systematic way.

And boy, is there a lot of material to deal with! Simply put, I think Hitchcock is a musical genius. But he doesn't get his due, because he's been content to pursue his own eccentric path for his entire career rather than trying for mainstream fame and big sales. He's been incredibly prolific all the while and he's still going strong today.

The only other songwriters I can think of who have been so consistent and prolific for so long are Bob Dylan and Neil Young. But Hitchcock's popularity is just a tiny fraction of those two giants, so I've had to dig deep to find and organize his more obscure material. I've got no less than 45 albums of his stray tracks that I've made, and that doesn't even count his many interesting concerts that I probably will want to post at some point in the future. (Unlike virtually any other artist except Phish, he's regularly played entire albums by other artists in concert, as well as sometimes entire albums of his own.)

By the time I'm done, I hope I'll open up at least some people's eyes to see that Hitchcock is a major artist who deserves to be compared to the likes of Dylan and Young. So let's begin...

Hitchcock's first solo album was 1981's "Black Snake Diamond Role." It was recorded a year after the classic Soft Boys album "Underwater Moonlight," and in fact the Soft Boys continued to play concerts off and on until 1982. As per my usual policy, I don't want to include any songs on official coherent albums like "Black Snake Diamond Role." But Hitchcock has a ton of stray songs, some of which got on official compilations such as "Invisible Hitchcock" or "You and Oblivion," but also many that remain unreleased. I consider all of those fair game. He has so many stray tracks that I've been able to make a companion album for nearly every single album he's released!

The first of these I call "Zinc Pear." I have no idea what the heck that means, but it was another title considered for "Black Snake Diamond Role," so I figure it's as good as any.

The songs on this album are a grab bag of weirdness. A couple are old Soft Boys songs redone by his new band ("Give Me a Spanner, Ralph" and "Dancing on God's Thumb"), one is an alternate version of a song on the "Black Snake Diamond Role" album ("I Watch the Cars No. 2"), and a couple would be redone for his next album ("Grooving on an Inner Plane" and "It Was the Night"). Some are really strange experiments (even by Hitchcock standards!), such as "Happy the Golden Prince," which is mostly a recited story. But, always, he keeps things creative and interesting.

By the way, I've included nearly all of his stray songs, but I did drop some due to quality control. I don't remember all the dropped titles, but for instance on this album I included "Blues in A" but not the very different "Blues in E."

All in all, this album has 51 minutes of music on it. Even if you drop a few songs because of overlap with other albums or because you just don't like them, that should still leave a full album's worth of top notch Hitchcock.

01 All I Wanna Do Is Fall in Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 A Skull, a Suitcase and a Long Red Bottle of Wine (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 It Was the Night (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 I Watch the Cars No. 2 (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Blues in A (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Give Me a Spanner, Ralph (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 It's a Mystic Trip (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Grooving on a Inner Plane [Single Version] (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 Dancing on God's Thumb (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 Melting Arthur (Robyn Hitchcock)
11 You're So Repulsive (Robyn Hitchcock)
12 Happy the Golden Prince (Robyn Hitchcock)
13 Opiatrescence (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122100/RobynH_1981_ZncPear_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used the cover of the 1981 single "The Man Who Invented Himself." All I did was change the words in the speech bubble, which had been "The man who invented himself." Admittedly, the art makes sense with the older title, but nothing really fits with "Zinc Pear" anyway, and I think it's a cool drawing made by Hitchcock.