Respect is the title of an album by Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians, released in 1993 on A&M. The group had signed with the label in the late 1980s, and this was their fourth and last set for A&M.
The album itself is a somewhat difficult affair, burdened by Hitchcock's grief for his father Raymond, who died from lung cancer prior to the album's recording. Most of the songs have references to this in the lyrics and the collection as a whole is dense and suffused with pessimism, despite Hitchcock's attempt to lighten it with deeply ironic humour. (The track "Driving Aloud" for example speaks of lung disease, observing that it 'makes mincemeat of your passions'. In live renditions, he would substitute 'passions' with 'parents'.)
During the group's A&M era, Hitchcock's recurrent theme of stark lyrics about death had been less in evidence - with the notable exception of "Luminous Rose" from Globe Of Frogs - but here it returns in full stream, as revealed in tracks such as "When I Was Dead" and "Then You're Dust".
Whether as part of a healing process or merely a result of his wanting to record this particular chapter of his life, Hitchcock spells things out throughout the album, most obviously in "The Yip Song", a manic number which has the sheen of nonsensical fun until one penetrates the lyric, which references his father's life, loves and death with lines which Hitchcock later stated were drawn from a dying man's hallucinations. During the period before recording the song was taken on the road and several further lines were inserted and switched about before the final text was settled on, suggesting that the song was of particularly high importance to its author, the eventual lyrical sequence the result of protracted contemplation.
Elsewhere on the album the mood occasionally lightens, as in the phallic "Serpent At The Gates Of Wisdom", a highly commercial number vaguely in the John Lennon mode, which received substantial radio play in the UK without becoming a hit.
"The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee" is another notable piece, referring to the lead singer of 1960s group Love, and throwing in images of ships disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle for good measure. The instrumental section pays homage to the central musical idea of "You Set The Scene", the final track on Love's classic Forever Changes (1967).
Respect concludes with "Wafflehead", a sexually squirming ode to a particularly unintelligent female, which Hitchcock would sometimes sing in a mock French accent in concert.
The album is packaged in a dark sleeve with another of Hitchcock's paintings on the front, featuring a pair of males with lemons for heads, which form the eyes of a face, possibly by way of self-portrait. The album notes include the sentiment, "Respect is due to Raymond Hitchcock and John Lennon".
Track listing
edit- The Yip Song
- Arms Of Love
- The Moon Inside
- Railway Shoes
- When I Was Dead
- The Wreck Of The Arthur Lee
- Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)
- Serpent At The Gates Of Wisdom
- Then You're Dust
- Wafflehead