Element of Light | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1986 | |||
Recorded | Alaska Studios Berry Street Studios Live recordings at The Town & Country Club | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 68:31 | |||
Label | Midnight Music Relativity Rhino | |||
Producer | Robyn Hitchcock & Andy Metcalfe | |||
Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Chicago Tribune | [2] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [3] |
Sounds | [4] |
Element of Light is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock and his second with his backing band, the Egyptians. It was released in 1986.
Most of the album was recorded at Alaska Studios and Berry Street, but two tracks, "The President" and "Lady Waters & The Hooded One", were live recordings made for the BBC, with overdubs recorded on BBC Mobile and at Alaska.
The album title derives from the song "Airscape", which has been cited several times by Hitchcock as a favourite among his own compositions, [5] and a live rendition was tagged on to later CD editions. "Airscape" concerns his "favourite beach", Compton Beach on the Isle of Wight, [6] which also provided a backdrop for the cover shots. He was inspired by learning about the erosion of the cliffs, and imagining the ghosts of people who had walked the cliffs centuries ago now suspended over the water. [7]
The song "The President" makes reference to Ronald Reagan's visit to Bitburg, where members of the Waffen-SS were buried. [8] In 2020 he re-recorded the song with altered lyrics referring to then-U.S. President Donald Trump. [9]
The song "Raymond Chandler Evening" is an homage to the world-weary novels of mystery writer Raymond Chandler. [10] The title was later used as the name for a sidequest in Cyberpunk 2077 also homaging the author.
Originally running to ten songs, the first CD edition included extra bonus tracks, all taken from singles, while later pressings have added a further six, including the comedic spoken number "The Can Opener".
The album was produced by Robyn and Andy Metcalfe, with input from long-time colleague Pat Collier.
All songs written by Robyn Hitchcock.
Strangers on a Train is a 1951 American psychological thriller film noir produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in late 1950, and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951, starring Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker.
"This Land Is Your Land" is a song by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. One of the United States' most famous folk songs, its lyrics were written in 1940 in critical response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Its melody is based on a Carter Family tune called "When the World's on Fire". When Guthrie was tired of hearing Kate Smith sing "God Bless America" on the radio in the late 1930s, he sarcastically called his song "God Blessed America for Me" before renaming it "This Land Is Your Land".
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano, and bass guitar. After leading the Soft Boys in the late 1970s and releasing the influential Underwater Moonlight, Hitchcock launched a prolific solo career. His musical and lyrical styles have been influenced by Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Syd Barrett, Captain Beefheart, Martin Carthy, Lou Reed, Roger McGuinn and Bryan Ferry.
Danny Ray Whitten was an American guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with Neil Young's backing band Crazy Horse, and for the song "I Don't Want to Talk About It", a hit for Rod Stewart and Everything but the Girl.
Fegmania! is the fourth studio album by Robyn Hitchcock and his first with his backing band The Egyptians.
Tim Keegan is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist. Vocalist and principal songwriter with Departure Lounge since 1999, Keegan has recorded and performed with various bands and as a solo artist. He has worked with a number of musicians including Robyn Hitchcock; he can be seen in Jonathan Demme's film about Hitchcock, Storefront Hitchcock – and played guitar on the Blue Aeroplanes' Rough Music album.
Marc Ford is an American blues-rock guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is a former guitarist of the rock and roll band The Black Crowes, the former lead guitarist of The Magpie Salute and the leader of his own bands: Burning Tree, Marc Ford & The Neptune Blues Club, Marc Ford & The Sinners, Fuzz Machine, and Jefferson Steelflex.
The Kershaw Sessions is an album by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, comprising nineteen titles recorded live between 1985 and 1991. The album was released in 1994.
Uncorrected Personality Traits is a compilation album by Robyn Hitchcock, released in 1997 on Rhino Records. Following A&M's 1996 Greatest Hits, this compilation was assembled from earlier, pre-A&M recordings, spanning 1981 to 1995 and selected personally by Hitchcock.
Robyn Sings is a double album by Robyn Hitchcock, released in 2002. The set is made up entirely of Bob Dylan covers, performed live at various dates.
Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is the fifth studio album by American rock band Counting Crows, released in the United States on March 25, 2008. It is thematically divided into two sides: the rock music of Saturday Nights and the more country-influenced Sunday Mornings. Vocalist and lyricist Adam Duritz states that the album "is about really wanting to mean something and failing to do it. You want your life to mean something. You want to be somebody and then what you turn out to be is so much less than what you thought you were going to be."
"Dignity" is a song by Bob Dylan, first released on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3 on November 15, 1994, and also released as a CD single a month later. It was originally recorded in the spring of 1989 during the Oh Mercy studio sessions, but was not included on the album. It was also later anthologized on Dylan (2007).
My 3 Addictions is the third official CD release from antifolk music group Elastic No-No Band and their first studio album.
"Crazy Arms" is an American country song which was a career-making hit for Ray Price. The song, released in May 1956, went on to become a number 1 country hit that year, establishing Price's sound, and redefining honky-tonk music. It was Price's first No. 1 hit.
I Wanna Go Backwards is a Robyn Hitchcock box set released in 2007 on Yep Roc Records. The set contains reissues of three of Hitchcock's albums, each with bonus tracks, and also a two-disc rarities set, While Thatcher Mauled Britain. The set consists of five CDs, and was also released as a limited edition of eight vinyl LPs.
Luminous Groove is a 2008 compilation box set of the albums Fegmania!, Gotta Let This Hen Out and Element of Light (1986) by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. The box set was issued on CD and vinyl. The versions included in the CD box set are the extended reissues from YepRoc. The set also includes 2 discs of B-sides and rarities called Bad Case of History.
Hatest Grits: B-Sides And Bullshit is a compilation album by Californian punk rock band Swingin' Utters.
Sandy Denny is a 2010 compilation box set of recordings by folk singer Sandy Denny and comprises all studio material and recordings made during her time both as a solo artist and as a member of Fotheringay, Fairport Convention, and other groups, together with home demos and live recordings.
The Interpreter: Live at Largo is a live album and a collection of cover songs, performed by Old 97's front man Rhett Miller at the Largo nightclub in Los Angeles, California. It was released in 2011, the recordings being from something of a farewell performance for the Largo before it closed its doors. In it, Miller covers some of his favorite songs for a venue that was special to him.
And ah, so I worked out that, that the cliffs where I pace, in another hundred years' time will disappear completely, and that my ghost will be fifty feet above the beach. There must be other ghosts out to sea, as the ghosts get further out to sea their costumes get older, so you've got you know, ghosts from the fifties about twenty feet out, and ghosts from World War II ghosts just beyond that, and you've got Great War ghosts with their goggles, and Edwardian ghosts with their mantles and Victorian ghosts with their cravats and canes, ah Jacobean ghosts with their... legs. And it just goes back on, whatever they had, those things to stop 'em smelling too bad. And about a mile out, there must be Cro-Magnon ghosts, clubbing each other to death and grinning. Now I guess there's going to be a few more of those inland as well. Anyway, this is a song from my ghost to those who walk underneath it.