You & Oblivion

Infobox Album
Name = You & Oblivion
Type = compilation
Artist = Robyn Hitchcock


Released = 1995
Recorded =
Genre = Alternative rock
Length =
Label =
Producer =
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"You & Oblivion" is the title of a solo Robyn Hitchcock album, released on CD in 1995. All 22 tracks are billed as previously unreleased, although "Surgery" had been included on the video edition of "Gotta Let This Hen Out" a decade previously, and "Ghost Ship" had also surfaced previously, albeit in an alternative version.

The album was not conceived on its own terms, being a compilation of leftovers and demos which Hitchcock had accumulated over several years during the 1980s. In this context it can be seen as part two of "Invisible Hitchcock", assembled from the same principle. "You & Oblivion" differs though in that it is exclusively acoustic, and therefore all Hitchcock's own work.

As may be expected given the nature and size of the album, numerous songs are below Hitchcock's general standard, and one, "Polly On The Shore" is a traditional number wrongly accredited to him on the sleeve. However, there are also some highly accomplished numbers present, in particular track 3, "Birdshead", which had received substantial exposure in Hitchcock's live sets, and references the mythological figure Thoth, a drawing of which had been used a logo by Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians.

"She Reached for a Light" is noteworthy in that it accomplished for Hitchcock an ambition stated several years earlier, in being comprised of a single guitar chord throughout. Although he had come close to this principle in earlier material (eg "Oceanside") this was the first time he released an entire track with no modulation, a significant coup for a solo performer who managed to avoid any trace of boredom in its 2:42.

The album endures for around an hour before its most important song arrives as number 20 in the playing order. "Ghost Ship" is a monumental piece, portraying death on the high seas with all of the humour and macabre fascination which permeates Hitchcock's best work, the lyric envisioning whitened skeletons dancing against the blue seas and bodies flailing around sunken sails.

The packaging contains part 1 of Hitchcock's short story "The Professor", which is concluded in the insert to the concurrent re-issue of "Invisible Hitchcock". Several of his line drawings illustrate the story, and the front cover is also his own work, rendered in oils on canvas.

Track listing

#"You've Got" - 4:09
#"Don't You" - 2:14
#"Birdshead" - 2:57
#"She Reached for a Light" - 2:42
#"Victorian Squid" - 2:27
#"Captain Dry" - 2:47
#"Mr. Rock 'n' Roll" - 4:19
#"August Hair" - 3:54
#"Take Your Knife Out of My Back" - 2:57
#"Surgery" - 2:35
#"The Dust" - 3:13
#"Polly on the Shore" - 3:28
#"Aether" - 3:05
#"Fiend Before the Shrine" - 2:01
#"Nothing" - 2:57
#"Into It" - 2:08
#"Stranded in the Future" - 3:21
#"Keeping Still" - 3:38
#"September Cones" - 5:20
#"Ghost Ship" - 5:38
#"You and Me" - 3:36
#"If I Could Look" - 1:38