1967 by Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Hitchcock was among the best-known psychedelic revivalists of the ‘80s. Little wonder that 1967, the year psychedelia peaked, looms in his imagination. Hitchcock’s memoir of that year opens in 1966 because every history has a prehistory. He’s age 12 and arriving at an English boarding school, the child of affluent, artistically inclined parents. The school’s atmosphere is medieval, but in the great hall sits a turntable and the first thing he hears? The Beatles’ Rubber Soul.
1967 is a curation of memories shaped by his family, the school and the era’s vibrant music. He loves Jimi Hendrix, but such proficiency was never his goal. Syd Barrett’s “playing the guitar solo on the bottom string”—that was his inspiration! Bob Dylan and the absurdity etched into the school’s stonework set the direction for Hitchcock’s future lyrics. And then there was the slightly older student from a nearby school by the name of Brian Eno who staged “happenings” …
Hitchcock went on to modest success in music. “All along, I remained rooted in 1967,” he writes, disappointed or disinterested in what came next. He calls it the following years the “Great Retreat” from the joyful experimentation of an era that flashed by like a dream.
Paid link
