Robyn Hitchcock—I Often Dream of Trains

Robyn Hitchcock—I Often Dream of Trains

I Often Dream of Trains—Although Black Snake Dîamond Röle (1981) and Groovy Decay (1982) were respectable beginning entries to his solo career, Robyn Hitchcock lacked a model record the caliber of Underwater Moonlight. It wasn't for lack of talent, of course, as Hitchcock was the principal songwriter of the Soft Boys, but having a band around him seemed to focus his music. The songs on Röle and Decay were sometimes labored or stiff, if principally strong, though the latter was perceived poorly and Hitchcock would fall into recession over the next couple years.

He reemerged in 1984 with I Often Dream of Trains, which was his first largely solo-performed and acoustic or piano-led album. He took the opportunity to explore new moods in his music. Whereas his prior work was a tense, warped new wave, Trains was subdued and moribund; he opens the album with a simple, pensive nocturne, simply titled "Nocturne (Prelude)." Hitchcock does retain his characteristic eccentricity, however, as evidenced by the creeping "Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl," where he confides, "Sometimes I wish I was a pretty girl/So I could [inaudible] myself in the shower." On the conflicted "Cathedral," he struggles to understand another being with a hint of derision: "Like a toilet from outside/A cathedral from inside/There, behind your open face/Lies an awful lot of space."

"Uncorrected Personality Traits" runs through a litany of intriguing psychological pitfalls in under two minutes, commenting on how, as the first lines of the song put succinctly, "uncorrected personality traits that seem whimsical in a child may prove to be ugly in a fully grown adult." He also serves up the curious thought, "Even Marilyn Monroe was a man/But this tends to get overlooked/By our mother-fixated, overweight, sexist media," which is not as ludicrous as it initially sounds. "Sounds Great When You're Dead" is a somewhat lesser song where Hitchcock experiments with a particular arrangement, while the surrealist "Flavour of Night" echoes David Bowie's Diamond Dogs. "Ye Sleeping Nights of Jesus" highlights the futility of waiting for miracles; "This Could Be the Day" pays tribute to the Velvet Underground.

"Trams of Old London," an effectively immersive folk song, sees Hitchcock take his partner around London. "Furry Green Atom Bowl" is something like an alchemist's rendition of "Sixteen Tons." "Heart Full of Leaves," an instrumental, and "Autumn Is Your Last Chance," a haunting song with a lonely lyric, could have fit on an early Cure album. Title cut and high point "I Often Dream of Trains" wraps up the themes of autumn and longing as well as the romanticizing of trains before the album ends nearly the same way it began, with a slightly livelier "Nocturne (Demise)."

I Often Dream of Trains marked an artistic rebirth for Robyn Hitchcock, which is strange considering its status as something of an anomaly in his oeuvre. He recorded nothing quite like it across the rest of the decade, instead choosing to effectively reform the Soft Boys (minus Kimberley Rew as the Egyptians) and record more electric material. It is characteristic of Hitchcock as the folk singer he always wanted to be, and despite its radically different style from the rest of his '80s work, it is rightfully considered a career highlight: melodic, wryly humorous, and ardently performed.