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Certain Songs #1987: Robyn Hitchcock – “End of Time”

December 19, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Love From London
Year: 2013

. . .

And so if you’re Robyn Hitchcock and your previous album was entitled Goodnight Oslo, then obviously your next move is to go to Norway and record and release an album there. Obviously. Which is exactly what Robyn did in 2011, with the relatively weak Tromsø, Kaptein, which mostly stood out for a remake of “Raining Twilight Coast” and the closing “Godnatt Oslo”, which, of course, was “Goodnight Oslo” sung in Norwegian. Of course.

Much stronger was the follow-up, 2013’s Love From London, which was a good not great late period Robyn Hitchcock album, which I have a feeling that I probably underrated at the time. In any event, Love From London ended with the gorgeous, hypnotic, which rides a huge straight-ahead boom-boom-bah drumbeat — which since there is no drummer listed, might be a drum machine because why not? — thick acoustic guitars and swirling keyboards. Meanwhile, Robyn is giving his words plenty of space to breathe.

Sunrise
Doesn’t give a damn
About who I am
Or what I’m doing anyway

Day breaks
Like an egg
Gotta say
A negative’s a postive to me

Take me
Take me
I’m ready for the end of time

Given that Robyn was now 60, it’s easy to see “End of Time” as a meditation on aging, though at the same time, he showed no sense of slowing down, as he was in the middle of a relatively prolific period. But of course, you didn’t have to do that, either: at this point, he’s pretty much singing to his cult, who are never not going to enjoy him singing “I’m ready for the end of time” over and over and over. Are we?

At what seems to be its end, “End of Time” fades away into a washing keyboard, like it’s sinking underwater, but then out of nowhere more music emerges: it’s Robyn and singing “love from London over here” over a 12-string guitar alternating with massive synth washes, like a lost song showing up on a distant shore. It’s just a cool way to end the record.

“End of Time”

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Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: End of Time, Love From London, Robyn Hitchcock

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2082: The Rolling Stones – “Miss You (Special Disco Version)”
  • Certain Songs #2081: The Rolling Stones – “Fool To Cry”
  • Certain Songs #2080: The Rolling Stones – “Memory Motel”
  • Certain Songs #2079: The Rolling Stones – “Hand of Fate”
  • Certain Songs #2078: The Rolling Stones – “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)”

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