Hitchcockian chills

Weird. I was just thinking about (and listening to) Robyn Hitchcock yesterday afternoon and I think your emphasis on the cinematic qualities of his lyrics nails it. I could never quite figure out why exactly I find it incredibly difficult to listen to his stuff with the Soft Boys, say, and concentrate on a book that I'm reading (or really do anything other than listen to the music). It incapacitates me and the lyrics tend to absorb all of my attention. And the visuals ... I find few lyricists who can compose such startling and distracting lines. Of course, that distracting visuality of the lyrics is precisely cinematic, even if it never occurred to me until you posted this that that was the issue here. Listening to Hitchcock and trying to read is like trying to watch a movie and read simultaneously: nearly impossible. So thanks for helping me clarify my own reaction to this man's songs!

Great song. Storefront Hitchcock (directed by Jonathan Demme) is one of the great overlooked concert films, as well.

Another thought-provoking post, Jim – and it ties in, I think, with your thoughts on Story from last week. I agree that “My Wife and My Dead Wife” has very (for lack of a better word) cinematic quality; and thinking about its structure and those of other favorite songs that share that quality – particularly the songs of Nick Cave – I’m trying to nail down a working definition of that particular quality. And I think it boils down to that old creative-writing class question of Show vs. Tell.

An out-and-out story song, e.g. Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler,” isn’t cinematic in the same way as “My Wife&c.” It’s primarily a matter of concision, I think; the agenda of “The Gambler” is to introduce its characters and situations, expound on its themes, and reach a conclusion, all in the space of three minutes – and so it’s all exposition, all Tell. It’s a very efficient, bare-bones way of telling a story, and it doesn’t leave much room for the visual element. It’s closer to prose.

A song like “My Wife...,” though, isn’t precisely narrative. It sets up a situation, but the rest is suggestion and intimation. And it’s told almost exclusively in images - in other words, it’s all Show. We are not privy to the internal lives of these characters, except inasmuch as they show in their actions – just like in a movie. Even when the narrator does Tell us something directly (“Oh, I’m such a lucky guy...”), we don’t take it at face value, as we would in prose – instead the situation prods us to interpret it as another image: He’s not addressing the listener, really, but rather his wife, or his dead wife, or both – and of course he’s going to say he’s a lucky guy, but what is he really feeling?

I think the degree to which lossless compression is worshipped is a joke.

Maybe I'm deaf compared to every one of the audiophiles who claim that they can't listen to music on their computer without it being in a lossless format, but I can't hear ANY difference between a high kbps bit rate MP3 audio file and a lossless track. (Incidentally, I assume you're using FLAC?)

Before I even read the name Robyn Hitchcock, I jumped ahead to the lyrics and knew immediately who it was! Great song! Doesn't he strike you as very Syd Barrett?

First, I'm very happy that some of you appreciate R. Hitchcock, too!

Jack: I think you're absolutely right, and your comparison is perfect. I was thinking about how somebody might "pitch" "My Wife and My Dead Wife" to, say, a studio development exec. What makes the lyric (and the song, as it is performed and arranged) so delectable, and so creepy-funny, is its ambiguity. There are so many possibilities for interpretation, because it's presented as a series of impressions/images. You put the "story" together yourself as each piece is added. The effect is cumulative, and your perception of it shifts as new images are added. In fact, the story is in some ways less than the premise.

So, this man is married and he keeps seeing his dead wife, but nobody else does. That's simple enough. But he's faced with a terrible dilemma: What does he do about it? He isn't sure which wife he loves more. In the end, he's holding hands with his dead wife, watching his wife by the sea. How do we interpret the comments about how neither can/could swim? Is his dead wife trying to regain her place in his life? Did she ever really leave it? Is he thinking of killing his wife, urged on by the ghost of his dead wife? (Shades of A. Hitchcock's "Suspicion"?) Did he somehow drown his dead wife? Is he hoping or fearing that his wife will die? Are his wife and his dead wife actually the same being (except that the dead version doesn't take sugar in her coffee -- possibly because she doesn't need it)? Why is he drilling holes in the wall? Why the echoes of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

All that can't quite be reduced to "story" (in "pitch" terms) because the song is not about the answers to those questions, but about the narrator's state of mind...

Might this cinematic quality have something to do with the use of present tense and active voice?

Wond'ring aloud,
Will the years treat us well?
As she floats in the kitchen,
I'm tasting the smell, yeah,
Of toast as the butter runs,
Then she comes, spilling crumbs
On the bed
And I shake my head.
And it's only the giving that makes you
What you are.
-- Jethro Tull

More Tull, shall we?

You wear a shiny skin and a funny hat.
The almighty animal trainer lets it go at that.
You bark ever so slightly at the trainers gun,
With your whiskers melting in the noon-day sun.
You flip and you flop under the big white top
Where the long-legged ring-mistress starts and stops,
But you know, after all, the act is wearing thin,
As the crowd grows uneasy and the boos begin.
But you balance your world on the tip of your nose.
Youre a sealion with a ball at the carnival.

How's about this one?

Time takes a cigarette,
Puts it in your mouth.
You pull on your finger, then another finger,
Then cigarette.
The wall-to-wall is calling. It lingers,
Then you forget.
Oh oh oh oh, you're a rock and roll suicide.
-- David Bowie

What makes a set of lyrics, or poem, cinematic? Is it the storytelling aspects? If so, does this relate to the last post about storytelling in movies? when I think of cinematic music, I think of Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger". The lyrics are great, but what makes me think of movies is that it's a story, and a short one at that.

Which makes me wonder, why do people try to make films out of very long books? It had been rumored for a while that there would a filmed version of Jonathan Franzen's, "The Corrections". Unless you're prepared to make a six hour movie, this seems like a waste of time to me. You'll spend so much time trying to squeeze the story into a (at best) 150-160 page script, and have then taken away the essence of the novel.

I know this post is a little off, but when I think of the Hitchcock lyrics, or "Red Headed Stranger", they seem cinematic, because they are so concise, clear, so to the point, and also full of small details. And I can think of so few great films that are based on novels of 300 pages or more.

Sorry this was a bit off topic.

I'm glad to read about someone else who is obsessed with both music and movies. They're always fighting each other for my free time and preventing me from accumulating money as well. Since you like compilations so much, have you checked out the Numero Group label? They put together some fantastic collections of undeservedly obscure stuff. The Eccentric Soul series is particularly excellent.

Nice -- I rediscovered my old Hitchcock albums last spring and have ever since been obsessively acquiring the catalog he's produced in the meantime -- it is impressively huge. Agree with Rob above about the genius of Storefront Hitchcock -- he also has a concert film with Grant Lee Phillips called Elixirs and Remedies, which is poorly produced but contains a few gems.

My favorite version of "My Wife and My Dead Wife" is this one, from an April '96 concert at Plaze del Carmen in Bilbao.

I'm so excited! I'm going to see him play in two weeks! (in Ridgewood, NJ)

Raymond - Full props to you for bringing the Tull, and doing it straigh faced.

(I shouldn't be so glib - I still think Too Old Too To Rock 'n Roll is one of the great concept albums)