The first time a young Robyn Hitchcock heard Bob Dylan, his life was forever changed. "I wasn't thirteen yet," he says. "I was in an exclusive private penitentiary for wealthy children, so I wasn't with my family, miles away from home. They had this sort of jukebox record player, and somebody used to put 'Like a Rolling Stone' on every day. Within about two or three weeks my allegiance had changed -- I had wanted to be an esoteric physicist, and by the end of the year I was experimenting with sunglasses and wondering why I didn't have curly hair. I was basically en route to becoming a mini Dylan."

Some thirty-seven years later, Hitchcock has released a tribute to the songwriter he credits as the reason he became a singer. Robyn Sings -- which comprises two CDs entitled "Disc Dots" and "Disc Stripes" and is currently available exclusively on Hitchcock's Web site, www.robynhitchcock.com -- is the end result of dozens of Dylan covers Hitchcock has recorded thirty-plus years of performing. Not only are the recordings a tribute, Hitchcock sees them as a challenge. "[Dylan's] stuff is not really based around melody so much as phrasing and accent, so you got to find your own way of singing them," he says. "As time's gone by, his songs have become more and more solipsistic. And the challenge is to get inside that and sing 'em your way, which I think I've managed to do."

Titled after the polka dot shirts Dylan "pioneered" ("To this day, I can be found wandering around on stage with a polka dot shirt and a harmonica holder in tribute to Bob," Hitchcock says), "Disc Dots" follows the same set as Dylan's Royal Albert Hall Concert. "It was me performing those songs in sequence, singing them, stressing the words the way Dylan sang 'em and trying to pretty much note-for-note play the same stuff," Hitchcock says. "It's just a very simple, live sound; like a bootleg, you can hear people muttering in the background. It's very enjoyable, a good high energy feeling.

"Disc Stripes" -- also fashion inspired ("Dylan must have had a striped shirt at some point. If he hasn't, I have") -- is an acoustic set that begins and ends with two versions of "Visions of Johanna," one solo and one with a band. "'Visions of Johanna' was for me the mothership," Hitchcock says. "It influenced the way I thought songs should and could be written." "Stripes" also features staples like "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and the recent Dylan song "Not Dark Yet."

Hitchcock says he had no anxiety over releasing his versions of the classic songs. "In the early days people covered Dylan songs 'cause they had nice tunes and they had a noble sentiment," he says. "But by the end of the Sixties, nobody tried to sing 'Visions of Johanna' or 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,' it was so personal to Dylan. I could sing Dylan songs until the universe folds. I've been trying to sing 'Visions of Johanna' since I was fifteen, but I wasn't developed enough to be able to sing something like that; whereas I think I can sing that stuff now, but obviously the listeners are going to make up their own minds."

Hitchcock's listeners can also expect a new album from the Soft Boys, the alterna-rock pioneers he founded in the late Seventies, around September. "Fresh Hope for Small Children" is the current working title of the record Hitchcock describes as "a rock-guitar-bass-drum-harmony record -- another variant on the Beatles, really.

"It's not like [the band's 1980 defining album] Underwater Moonlight," he continues. "The songs are nothing like those songs, because I'm not feeling anything like I was when I wrote those songs."

As for fans' reactions, Hitchcock has it all figured out. "They'll be initially pleased to hear it, and then they'll say it's not as good as Under Water Moonlight and then about five years down the line they'll probably get to like it on it's own merit," he says. "I can see the different layers of icing -- they'll like licking off the first layer, they won't like licking off the second layer, but once they've got through, the third layer's pretty good."

Robyn Sings track listing:

"Disc Stripes"
Visions of Johanna
Tangled Up in Blue
Not Dark Yet
4th Time Around
Desolation Row
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Dignity
Visions of Johanna

"Disc Dots"
Tell Me Mama
I Don't Believe You
Baby Let Me Follow You Down
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat
One Too Many Mornings
Ballad of a Thin Man
Like a Rolling Stone

Robyn Hitchcock tour dates:

4/12: New York, the Bottom Line
4/16: Chicago, Park West
4/21: Seattle, the Crocodile
4/23: San Francisco, Great American Music Hall
4/27: West Hollywood, Cafe Largo

CHRISTINA SARACENO
(April 11, 2002)