Sometime last Saturday afternoon while listening to Robyn Hitchcock's latest album, I felt a nearly overwhelming urge to lie down on my back in the middle of my dad's van and never get up. I would have too, if I hadn't been driving on the highway at the moment.
The song that made me feel that way was "I Feel Beautiful"; the circumstances involved too sordid and ridiculous to go into here. But feel that way I did, and it cemented my feelings of love for Jewels for Sophia. You think that's ass backward, I know, but my fascination for Robyn Hitchcock is based on this urge. Ever since I first found my thirteen- year- old self lying in the middle of my living room floor listening to I Often Dream of Trains, I've based my ratings of various Hitchcock albums on how debilitating their melancholy is for me. It's like this: Element of Light makes me want to lie down on the floor during some of the songs and sit up during others; it's a really good Hitchcock album. Respect makes me want to lie down for one or two songs and spend the other songs doing household chores; it's an okay Hitchcock album. Groovy Decoy makes me want to run around the park; it sucks.
And Jewels for Sophia made me want to abandon the helm of a large and fast- moving vehicle and lie in the back, heedless of the twisted guardrails and smoke, and dirty looks from other motorists. That's good Hitchcock.
"Mexican God" boots the record off with the satisfying click of a classic- Robyn- Hitchcock- song- shaped peg being snapped into a classic- Robyn- Hitchcock- song- shaped hole: acoustic strumming, jaunty drums, bloodthirsty deities-- three great tastes that taste great together. "The Cheese Alarm" is a fantastic example of what I call the "Hitchcock Switcheroo": a song that starts out sounding silly and winds up telling you more than you wanted to know about yourself. "NASA Clapping" reunites Robyn with fellow former Soft Boy Kimberly Rew with surprisingly good results. "Antwoman" finds its satisfying quirkiness not in its lyrics but in its background "sighing machine" and "antvoices" (the latter provided by Grant Lee Phillips).
The two standout tracks, though, are a fleshed- out version of "No, I Don't Remeber Guildford" (originally released on last year's Storefront Hitchcock) and "I Feel Beautiful"-- both of which find Hitchcock doing what he does most rarely and most brilliantly: using his strangeness not as an end, but as a means to convey an emotional state. Most importantly, Jewels for Sophia seems to find Robyn Hitchcock once again relaxing into the idea that, for better or for worse, he tends to write Robyn Hitchcock songs-- an idea he seems to have been resisting on the past few albums. I'm glad for it, personally, even though it nearly killed me.
