British solo artist Robyn Hitchcock pairs five cover songs with five original tunes in his latest self-described “elegiac record,” The Man Upstairs. “I am, after all this time, a guitarist and a singer as much as I am a songwriter,” he says, not “just another singer/songwriter laying their freshest eggs.” The hybrid creation, suggested by the album’s producer Joe Boyd, draws on the songwriting of The Doors, The Psychedelic Furs, Roxy Music, Grant-Lee Phillips and I Was a King while also showcasing Hitchcock’s melancholic “musing on mortality, masculinity, and the impossibility of forever,” as his bio puts it. Australian Americana songwriter Emma Swift opens for Hitchcock’s seated show at The Grey Eagle on Sunday, Feb. 15, at 8 p.m. $15/$18. thegreyeagle.com. Photo by Laura Partrain
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