We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Respect
Year: 1993
. . .
While people always fixated on the Syd Barrett or John Lennon influences on Robyn Hitchcock, Bob Dylan was also a huge influence, which became formalized when he released an album of Dylan covers that featured the electric half of Dylan’s infamous Manchester 1966 concert. Since then, he’s sprinkled Dylan covers here and there.
And heck, just this year, he played guitar on his partner Emma Swift’s fantastic Dylan covers album.
Album: Respect
Year: 1993
. . .
“Arms of Love” is on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Robyn Hitchcock Division. It was also the first Robyn Hitchcock song I was looking forward to hearing, and it was the rare Robyn Hitchcock song that had been covered by another artist prior to Robyn putting our his own version.
That artist, of course, was R.E.M., who had been intertwined with Hitchcock since 1988 — Peter Buck was basically the fourth Egyptian and Michael Stipe had sung on two of the better of the Perspex Island-era songs, “She Doesn’t Exist” and “Dark Green Energy.”
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1973: Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians – “The Arms of Love”
Album: Live in Europe
Year: 1967
“Here’s a song that a girl stole from me, and now I’m stealing it back” is not a thing that Otis Redding ever probably said before performing “Respect” in front of a live audience, but his performance of the song on Live in Europe was ferocious enough to just about do that.
Or at least that’s what mid-1980s Jim, whose exposure to either Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding was still limited to their biggest singles or soundtrack appearances (including Aretha’s performance of “Shake” in The Blues Brothers), so when I first heard Otis locomotivate “Respect” on Live in Europe — the first song on the first Otis Redding album I ever bought — I was blown away by the sheer unbridled energy of it all.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1411: Otis Redding – “Respect (Live in Europe)”