Video: Robyn Hitchcock – “Raymond and The Wires”
A cool new song about riding trolleys with his dad. This is from Robyn Hitchcock’s upcoming self-titled album, due April 21 on Yep Roc.
“This video is a collage of years and Hitchcocks, assembled by Jeremy Dylan from archive trolleybus footage; from my family’s home movies; and from film he shot of me recently,” says Hitchcock. “I’m singing the song on a tram in Melbourne, Australia about a trolleybus ride I took with my late father Raymond in Reading, England in 1964. In these clips Raymond, resplendent in early 1970s porno moustache, is younger than the present-day me is now. My current self is also in there perving over some beautiful vintage trams in San Francisco. There’s a glimpse of 13-year-old me stepping out of a boat to greet my sister Fleur, who now in later life is an author and incidentally supplied Jeremy with the old family film. And 39-year-old me peers for a second from a weeping elm tree at Raymond’s wake in 1992. His favourite folk band, the Yetties from the West of England, gave us all a free show – what a night! Raymond liked a nice tune. This would probably have embarrassed him, given what a distant English family we were. But his spirit loves acknowledgement, I like to think: and I’m sure he lives through me as fully as any ghost. On ya, dad!”