Robyn Hitchcock to publish memoir 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left

Robyn Hitchcock, famed singer-songwriter and band-leader of the Soft Boys and the Egyptians, has announced the release date of his upcoming memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left.

The novel will cover a 12-month period of the musician’s early adolescence, documenting an isolating transition into boarding school and Hitchcock’s subsequent musical obsessions with artists like The Beatles, Brian Eno and Jimi Hendrix.

Set to be published via Akashic Books on June 28, the memoir is a heartwarming coming-of-age story about the life-altering discoveries of a 14 year-old boy.

“1967 is the point when I and the world went through the change,” Hitchcock explained in a recent press release. “It was all just blissful synchronicity as I grew nine inches in 15 months, just as Dylan was electrified and pop groups turned into rock bands.

“Arguably as much was lost as was gained, but at the same time, you had Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd and others producing music that couldn’t have even been described three years earlier. You had the Beatles wearing suits and ties producing inaudible shows with tiny amplifiers, in many ways playing to the old rules of showbiz, and then suddenly up came Dylan with his thousand-watt PA and Jimi Hendrix with his Marshall stacks, and the whole thing erupted.”