Saturday, August 17, 2019

Robyn Hitchcock - Eerie Green Storm Lantern - Non-Album Tracks (2002)

Here's the next in my seemingly endless series of Robyn Hitchcock's stray tracks albums. The man is prolific!

This album covers just 2002. That was the year that Hitchcock was part of a reunion of his original band, the Soft Boys. The Soft Boys put out a studio album of all new material, "Nextdoorland," and went on tour.

For most musicians, the reunion would have taken up all of their creative energy for the year. But Hitchcock was coming up with other songs, which he never put on any studio album. Three of the songs here, "Mr. Kennedy," "Sudden Town," and "My Mind Is Connected..." actually originate from the "Nextdoorland" reunion album. However, these are solo acoustic versions that are very different than the Soft Boys versions on that album.

The rest of the songs here are the usual grab bag of stray tracks Hitchcock puts out most every year. "Let Me Roll It" is unusual in that it's a cover of a Paul McCartney solo song for a tribute album, done with a full band. I believe all the others are originals. A majority of the songs are from bootleg, but the sound quality on all of those are excellent. Most of those come from in-person radio or TV appearances.

I'm ending this with three bonus tracks of sorts. In addition to a Soft Boys album in 2002, a Soft Boys EP was also released, called "Side Three." It has seven songs on it. Frankly, these have to be the leftovers from the album session, and some of them aren't that good. But I've chosen the three I really like and added them to the end.

01 Mr. Kennedy (Robyn Hitchcock with Grant Lee Phillips)
02 Ring Them Bones (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 Take This in Remembrance (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 Eerie Green Storm Lantern (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Four Lonely Lamps (Robyn Hitchcock & Grant Lee Phillips)
06 Let Me Roll It (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 Sudden Town (Robyn Hitchcock)
08 Unprotected Love (Robyn Hitchcock)
09 My Mind Is Connected... (Robyn Hitchcock)
10 I Got You Babe (Robyn Hitchcock & Deni Bonet)
11 Narcissus (Soft Boys)
12 Comin' Through (Soft Boys)
13 The Disconnection of the Ruling Class (Soft Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15122304/RobynH_2000-2002_EerieGreenSormLantern_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I decided to take a very literal approach. With an album titled "Eerie Green Storm Lantern," I want to see an actual eerie green storm lantern! ;) So the photo is the best I could come up with from a Google search.

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