Still, the weirdness of this record is palpable and often quite menacing, even when Hitchcock is being witty or flip. Opener "The Man Who Invented Himself" sands down the new wave edges of the Soft Boys into bouncy piano flourishes and an unflinching pop sensibility. Released just a year after the Soft Boys' demise, 1981's Black Snake Diamond Role is the most immediately accessible of these three records, and in many ways the silliest. While these albums take place largely in the plane of the imagination, the integrity of this world is always being undermined by an invisible dialogue with an increasingly sad and decrepit reality. Aside from elucidating the frequent appearance of colonial themes (see Eye opener "Cynthia Mask" and I Often Dream of Trains' "This Could Be the Day"), this also speaks to the oddly intrusive quality of the darker elements in Hitchcock's work. In the only text accompanying the box set that is not unerringly cryptic, Hitchcock explains that these records were inspired by the despairing state of Britain at the time they were written and recorded. The liner notes for I Wanna Go Backwards' 2xCD outtakes and demos set While Thatcher Mauled Britain serve as something of Rosetta Stone for the recurring imagery on these releases. In a sense, Hitchcock's best work is defined by this current of self-sabotage, by the continuous appearance of the plain and the nightmarish in a world of child-like fantasy and humor. For all of the whimsy and oddball imagery, the mundane and/or the horrific always seem to be lurking just around the corner.
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It's fantastical, but it fails miserably as escapism. I Wanna Go Backwards* compiles three of Hitchcock's early solo albums and two discs of demos and outtakes, all of which are populated by historical mirages, impossible characters, and slap-yourself-on-the-forehead wordplay.
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While he's covered a great deal of stylistic ground over a dizzying number of albums, each one is an iteration of a musical persona so unique and fully realized that it seems almost impossible to emulate. That Hitchcock is not often cited as an influential figure outside of his work with the Soft Boys speaks to the weirdly self-contained nature of his musical world.
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In the 26 years since Black Snake's release, Hitchcock's songs have remained riddled with recurring characters and self-aware puns. The title of his solo debut, Black Snake Diamond Role, was a play on "Black Snake Diamond Rock", a song by the Hitchcock-fronted and then-recently disbanded Soft Boys. Robyn Hitchcock's catalog has been sprawling and self-referential from the get-go.