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I Often Dream of Trains

by

Robyn Hitchcock

 
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I Often Dream of Trains
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Avg: 4.0 (235 ratings)

Hitchcock's flair for cockeyed melody goes mobile.

  • We Say...

    Review by J. Edward Keyes

    A bold about-face from the bright Beatle-esque jangle he'd plied just four years earlier with the Soft Boys, I Often Dream of Trains finds a wounded and subdued Roby Hitchcock attempting to make sense of himself. Because Hitchcock is a master surrealist, even his sense doesn't make much sense: "Sounds Great When You're Dead" is clearly a sneering insult — but to whom and over what remains just out of reach; "This Could Be the Day" ought to be a victory anthem, until halfway through we're confronted with Nubian slaves and hissing tongues of fire; and the title track is an aching, moving cipher, either a meditation on mortality or an observation of slow-moving public transit. What remains uniform throughout is Hitchcock's flair for cockeyed melody. Wistful acoustic phrases go suddenly pear-shaped, resolving from major seventh to minor catastrophe. It's Dadaism unplugged, a hushed, moody work of strange visions and wild inventions. It's quiet splendor has only grown more singular and more stubborn with age.

  • They Say...

    Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

    After the debacle that was the making of 1982's Groovy Decay, Robyn Hitchcock briefly retired from music, and when he returned it was with an album that offered a thoroughly uncompromised vision of Hitchcock's imagination. Released in 1984, I Often Dream of Trains was a primarily acoustic set with Hitchcock handling nearly all the instruments and vocals by himself; the tone is spare compared to the full-on rock & roll of his recordings with the Soft Boys or his solo debut, Black Snake Diamond Role, but the curious beauty of Hitchcock's melodies is every bit as striking in these stripped-down sessions, and the surreal imagery of "Flavour of Night," "Trams of Old London," and the title song comes to vivid and enchanting life. Hitchcock's off-kilter wit has rarely been as effective as it is on this album; the jaunty harmonies of "Uncorrected Personality Traits" are the ideal complement for the song's psychobabble, "Sounds Great When You're Dead" manages to be funny and a bit disturbing at once, and the drunken campfire singalong of "Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus" was joyously sloppy enough to inspire a cover by the Replacements. There's a slightly ramshackle quality to these recordings, but Hitchcock was rarely in more uniformly fine form as a songwriter, and there is a consistency of tone to the disc that makes it all the more effective, drawing listeners into a curious world of its own and allowing them to explore the surroundings and their quiet splendor. And Hitchcock has rarely recorded a song as luminously gorgeous as "Autumn Is Your Last Chance." Hitchcock would pick up his electric guitar and reunite with his band the Egyptians in 1985, releasing two fine albums in one year, but I Often Dream of Trains was a simple and marvelously effective return to action that's all the more winning for its subdued, tentative tone.

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