Robyn Hitchcock is a rock 'n' roll surrealist. Born in London in 1953, he describes his songs as "paintings you can listen to". As much a child of Dalí, de Chirico and J. G. Ballard as of his 1960s musical heroes, he is a master of the absurd, revelling in the beauty of the unexpected. His first band, the Soft Boys (1976-81), has remained an influential art-rock touchstone for generations of musicians. Hitchcock has floated at a tangent to the mainstream for five decades, and his songs have been performed by R.E.M., the Replacements, Neko Case, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Lou Barlow, Uncle Tupelo, Vic Chesnutt, Grant-Lee Phillips, Sparklehorse and Suzanne Vega with the Grateful Dead, among others. He came of age in the 1960s while he attended Winchester College, an eccentric hothouse boarding school in the south of England. Hitchcock lives in Nashville with his wife Emma Swift and their two cats, Ringo and Tubby.

Incredibly enough, when decades ago I first swooned for the Soft Boys and their shambolic leader, I said to myself and anyone who'd listen, "This is the sole psychedelic musician I can imagine writing not one, but actually two witty, self-effacing, phantasmagorical autofictional memoirs in quick succession as he rounds into late middle age." Even more incredibly, I have been completely vindicated in this left-field speculation, and we are all the better for it, as Stranded in the Future has capitalized on the opportunities opened by 1967's close focus on that single year of boyish self-invention and vaulted us into the next act, in which mannish boy becomes boyish man. Now our correspondent only has to repeat this astonishing trick ten more times to complete his imperishable twelve-volume epic A Dance to the Music of Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock is a rock 'n' roll surrealist. Born in London in 1953, he describes his songs as "paintings you can listen to". As much a child of Dalí, de Chirico and J. G. Ballard as of his 1960s musical heroes, he is a master of the absurd, revelling in the beauty of the unexpected. His first band, the Soft Boys (1976-81), has remained an influential art-rock touchstone for generations of musicians. Hitchcock has floated at a tangent to the mainstream for five decades, and his songs have been performed by R.E.M., the Replacements, Neko Case, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Lou Barlow, Uncle Tupelo, Vic Chesnutt, Grant-Lee Phillips, Sparklehorse and Suzanne Vega with the Grateful Dead, among others. He came of age in the 1960s while he attended Winchester College, an eccentric hothouse boarding school in the south of England. Hitchcock lives in Nashville with his wife Emma Swift and their two cats, Ringo and Tubby.

Incredibly enough, when decades ago I first swooned for the Soft Boys and their shambolic leader, I said to myself and anyone who'd listen, "This is the sole psychedelic musician I can imagine writing not one, but actually two witty, self-effacing, phantasmagorical autofictional memoirs in quick succession as he rounds into late middle age." Even more incredibly, I have been completely vindicated in this left-field speculation, and we are all the better for it, as Stranded in the Future has capitalized on the opportunities opened by 1967's close focus on that single year of boyish self-invention and vaulted us into the next act, in which mannish boy becomes boyish man. Now our correspondent only has to repeat this astonishing trick ten more times to complete his imperishable twelve-volume epic A Dance to the Music of Hitchcock

Robyn Hitchcock is a rock 'n' roll surrealist. Born in London in 1953, he describes his songs as "paintings you can listen to". As much a child of Dalí, de Chirico and J. G. Ballard as of his 1960s musical heroes, he is a master of the absurd, revelling in the beauty of the unexpected. His first band, the Soft Boys (1976-81), has remained an influential art-rock touchstone for generations of musicians. Hitchcock has floated at a tangent to the mainstream for five decades, and his songs have been performed by R.E.M., the Replacements, Neko Case, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Lou Barlow, Uncle Tupelo, Vic Chesnutt, Grant-Lee Phillips, Sparklehorse and Suzanne Vega with the Grateful Dead, among others. He came of age in the 1960s while he attended Winchester College, an eccentric hothouse boarding school in the south of England. Hitchcock lives in Nashville with his wife Emma Swift and their two cats, Ringo and Tubby.

Incredibly enough, when decades ago I first swooned for the Soft Boys and their shambolic leader, I said to myself and anyone who'd listen, "This is the sole psychedelic musician I can imagine writing not one, but actually two witty, self-effacing, phantasmagorical autofictional memoirs in quick succession as he rounds into late middle age." Even more incredibly, I have been completely vindicated in this left-field speculation, and we are all the better for it, as Stranded in the Future has capitalized on the opportunities opened by 1967's close focus on that single year of boyish self-invention and vaulted us into the next act, in which mannish boy becomes boyish man. Now our correspondent only has to repeat this astonishing trick ten more times to complete his imperishable twelve-volume epic A Dance to the Music of Hitchcock