Cornish Bones

Cornish game hen: if you're willing to work as hard as if you're eating lobster, you are rewarded with the exotic taste of chicken.

Whose stupid idea was that ?

Also: Suzanne Vega & The Grateful Dead once covered Robyn Hitchcock's "Chinese Bones":

This also makes no sense.

The acoustic version of this on his Obliteration Pie record might be my favorite RH song, ever. It's either that, "Glass Hotel" or "No, I Don't Remember Guilford" (both from Storefront). Theme: solo, acoustic, crystalline.

Bored.

5 thoughts on “Cornish Bones”

  1. The Modesto Kid

    I like Hitchcock’s solo acoustic stuff a whole lot (especially like watching him perform solo); but I think my favorite stuff of his is hearing his interactions with backup musicians and vocalists — I think of e.g. Morris Windsor as a proxy with whom I can identify, my interaction with Robyn is mediated by Morris. Like one time I was listening to “Birds in Perspex” and at the end of the song, when Morris is chanting “Birds in perspex come alive”, I had something similar to an out-of-body experience, that it was my own voice coming through the speaker…

    That Suzanne Vega track is a kick — I remember reading about that show, it was a Dead concert at Madison Square Garden in the 80’s, I think a benefit for some cause, where a lot of performers sang with the Dead as the backup — IIRC Hall and Oates were also on the program.

  2. The Modesto Kid

    (Oh yeah, in fact now that I look at the video you embedded I see it was a benefit for the rain forest. Alas, just about un-listenable. I didn’t remember how lifeless the song sounds in their hands.)

  3. cleek

    I had something similar to an out-of-body experience, that it was my own voice coming through the speaker

    heh. awesome :)

    he plays acoustic so often that you can find acoustic versions of most of his ‘band’ songs, and i’m struggling to think of more than one or two songs that i prefer the band version of. for every “Balloon Man” or “Brenda’s Iron Sledge”, i can name two things off Storefront, or Obliteration Pie or from some live-in-the-studio radio bootleg thing (like that link right now in the “Web’s Golden Bounty” section) where the acoustic version seems more powerful than the band version, as if the full-on electric bands dilute the Robyn-ness somewhat. i almost always prefer hearing him play (what i assume is) the core of the song, solo.

    but, luckily, he’s so prolific that there’s plenty for all :)

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