For about 15 years I’ve been talking about making a 4-disc Robyn Hitchcock mix with the four humors as its organizing principle. I’ve never actually started though, because the idea of systematizing such an enormous body of work is seriously daunting — and becomes more and more daunting with each passing year, since the man’s production seems not to be slowing in any meaningful way. Two things have prompted me to get this thing off the ground though: 1) an arbitrary cutoff date (nothing after Spooked, I just decided this second); and 2) the sudden realization that I have technological tools at my disposal.
So: today begins the process of listening to every RH song from 1981 to 2005, giving them star ratings, and tagging them SAN, MEL, CHO, or PHL — thereby populating the four smart playlists I just set up. If my iPhone would let me edit the comments field we’d really be in business.
There’s still one big hurdle to overcome, which is the way the songs are probably going to end up distributing themselves. First there’s the danger that “Mellow Together” is going to be the one and only phlegmatic song. More importantly, Robyn’s been working the bittersweet point where sanguine meets melancholy really hard for about 35 years, and teasing those apart is going to involve a lot of judgment calls. I might have to invent a new humor. I’m going to go ahead and just call that “umami”.
