Robyn Hitchcock - Magnum Force (2012)

"Magnum Force" was a 1975 hit action movie starring Clint Eastwood. It was one of five movies where Eastwood played the character Harry Callahan, better known by the nickname "Dirty Harry." While traveling the world playing concerts, Robyn Hitchcock kept catching the movie on TV, and found himself fascinated by it in some inexplicable way. He was so interested that he wrote a bunch of songs relating to the movie. By 2009, it was reported in the news that Hitchcock was planning to turn his songs about the movie into a Broadway play. Here's an article about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jan/29/magnum-force-the-musical?fbclid=IwAR1Tc42j3wZ-ywzIraTmCXCFxuGSYA0ohElBOV3ekm3Ww7BDnto4jjd2vy8

Sadly, the "Magnum Force" play has not come to pass, at least not yet. But in 2012, apparently just once, Hitchcock played a bunch of his songs about the movie for a small audience in a club in London. The movie was shown. From time to time, it was stopped and Hitchcock played a song that was relevant to the latest scene. Then the movie resumed. 

Luckily, there's a decent sounding bootleg from this unique concert (or movie screening or whatever you call it). I've taken the recording and stripped it down to just the music. (There wasn't much talking by Hitchcock in any case, but there was some by an emcee.) For once, I didn't have to remove the clapping at the ends of songs, because the audience was told to stay quiet until the end of the movie.

This is a very short album compared to what I usually post here, at just 27 minutes long. But it's all the songs I know of that he's written relating to the movie. I didn't want to dilute that by adding any other songs.

Some of the songs have been officially released by him here and there. "Light Blue Afternoon" appeared on his 2011 album "Tromso, Kaptein," "San Francisco Patrol" was on his 2014 album "The Man Upstairs." "Follow Your Money" was released as a single only with Emma Swift in 2015. "(A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs" first appeared on the 2005 album "Obliteration Pie," then in a different form in the 2006 album "Ole! Tarantula." That one seems to be Hitchcock's favorite of the bunch, since he still plays it in concert a lot. It also has more of an obvious link to the movie than most, since "Briggs" was one of the main characters in it.

That leaves three songs. As far as I can tell, they're still unreleased. I don't even know the real names to them, since he probably only ever played them this one time, and he didn't name them. The names here are the guesses made by the person who recorded the show. If you know of better names for any of them, please let me know.

01 Light Blue Afternoon (Robyn Hitchcock)
02 Can You Fly This Thing (Robyn Hitchcock)
03 What Do I Have to Do (Robyn Hitchcock)
04 San Francisco Patrol (Robyn Hitchcock)
05 Follow Your Money (Robyn Hitchcock)
06 Either You're for Us or You're Against Us (Robyn Hitchcock)
07 [A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations] Briggs (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16068061/RobynH_2012_MagnumForcVariousSongs_atse.zip.html

I decided to have a little fun with the cover art. I took a poster from the movie that featured Clint Eastwood holding a big gun. I found a photo of Hitchcock from probably the late 1980s that had a similar shading and shadow angle. I then replaced Eastwood's head with Hitchcock's. I also replaced Eastwood's full name with Hitchcock's in the poster's tag line.