Born in London.

I see a dead chicken.

John Lennon meets Paul McCartney in Liverpool. I see an episode of “Popeye” on my neighbour’s TV, and try unsuccessfully to push overa brick wall. I'd forgotten to eat the spinach.

I get my first plastic dinosaur.

Bay Of Pigs & The Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy faces off Kruschev. I start collecting beetles.

The Beatles have four number one hits. I try unsuccessfully to compose an instrumental in my head. Kennedy shot dead. First Dr. Who episode transmitted.

Discover H.G. Wells. Try unsuccessfully to build a time-machine.

Discover Bob Dylan and give up trying.

The Year Zero
February: Get my first guitar. October: Learn to tune it. Beatles release “Sgt Pepper”

In July, Neil Armstrong is the first man in recorded history to stand on the moon. Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart is released the following month.

The Beatles dissolve. I write my first song , "Baby," with my school friend Martin, who is now a lawyer in Buenos Aires.

Martin and I play the City and Guilds Art School Dance with our beat group, "The Beatles." Somehow the name doesn't catch on, and we play our last gig on December 31st 1973 at the British Council. Topping the bill are Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers,whose drummer Pete Thomas goes on to play with Elvis Costello.

Nixon impeached. I move up to Cambridge looking for musicians, and play the folk-clubs.

Margaret Thatcher becomes head of the Conservative party. I keep playing the folk clubs.

The Sex Pistols release "Anarchy In The UK." I write "It's Not Just The Size Of A Walnut." I'm still looking for the right musicians.

I find the right musicians, AKA The Soft Boys - Morris Windsor, Andy Metcalfe, Alan Davies and me. We release “Wading Through A Ventilator” EP in November. Doesn’t quite connect with the Year Zero of Punk.

The Soft Boys support Elvis Costello and nearly get a major record deal. Kimberley Rew replaces Alan Davies. 45 rpm single “I Want To Be Anglepoise Lamp” released on Radar Records.

A Can Of Bees released on our own Two Crabs label. Julian Cope later describes it as a “red-hot poker up the arse of pop music.” Thatcher elected as Prime Minister.

Underwater Moonlight,the second Soft Boys LP is released on the Armageddon label. We get as far as New York, where three months later, John Lennon is shot dead. Ronald Reagan elected.

The Soft Boys dissolve. I release Black Snake Diamond Role and promote it by doing nothing. Inner city riots throughout Britain. Spandau Ballet are huge.

My second solo album, Groovy Decoy. Promote it by doing even less, except tour of Norwegian fallout shelters with Morris Windsor, playing to AC/DC fans. Falklands War guarantees Thatcher a second term. I drink and listen to Bryan Ferry.

Write lyrics for Captain Sensible. Sleep a lot. Unbeknownst to me, US college radio stations are now playing our old records.

R.E.M. and other new US bands cite The Soft Boys and myself as influences. Meet Peter Buck at Highgate Cat Protection League. Release first totally solo record I Often Dream Of Trains. Play first live show in two years at The Hope & Anchor, Islington - there’s a queue around the block.

Start touring US with backing group The Egyptians, featuring former Soft Boys Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalfe. Booked to support REM but caterpillar-shaped growth in my abdomen requires surgery and aborts tour. Fegmania! the first Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians LP is released. Fifteen-minute standing ovation after our New York show at the Irving Plaza. Live CD and DVD “Gotta Let This Hen Out” released.

We sign to A&M records in the US. Element Of Light, Globe Of Frogs, Queen Elvis and Perspex Island all top the Rolling Stone Alternative chart.

Finally open for REM on their Green tour. I play my first solo US tour in the autumn. Eye is recorded in San Francisco, solo.

The Year Punk Broke, again. “Nevermind” by Nirvana chases Perspex Island off the chart.

Respect is my last album with Egyptians. In Britain the Tories are in for a fourth term, despite the deposing of Margaret Thatcher. Great debut albums from Grant-Lee Buffalo and Belly.

Now touring with Deni Bonet on violin. Jonathan Demme appears in the dressing room between sets at our show near his home just outside New York City and offers to film us in concert.

Jonathan Demme directs Storefront Hitchcock, a concert movie with Deni Bonet, Tim Keegan and I playing in a shop window on 14th Street in New York. Moss Elixir is released on Warner Brothers. Tour US and Canada with Billy Bragg.

Tony Blair becomes prime minister. Labour returns to power after eighteen years - kind of. Phil Collins moves to Switzerland. “Smack My Bitch Up” a big hit for the Prodigy

Storefront Hitchcock opens at the Film Forum in NYC. Jonathan & Joanne Demme, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Michael Stipe and Peter Buck attend. Peter and I busk outside afterwards and collect over $13. Warner's release Storefront Hitchcock on CD and double vinyl. DVD is released thru MGM.

Third album for Warner's, Jewels For Sophia. I tour the US as part of the “Revue Against Brain Degeneration” with The Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Sonic Boom and Cornelius. “Storefront” shown at film festivals in Australia, Sweden, Britain and the US. Western planes bomb Belgrade.

Shows in the US with Grant Lee Phillips, as Grant Lee Hitchcock. Live DVD “Elixirs & Remedies” filmed by Kris Kristensen. A Star For Bram (companion to Jewels For Sophia) is the first release on editionsPAF!

George W. Bush takes office. Deep breath. The Soft Boys reform to promote the 21st anniversary re-release of Underwater Moonlight, tour the US and record World Trade Centre in New York demolished by hijacked passenger planes. George Harrison dies at 58.

The Soft Boys album NextDoorLand is released by Matador. The reunion lasts until March 2003. I have a cameo appearance as a sleazy rock grandad in TV adaptation of Tony Parsons’ book, Man And Boy. Robyn Sings, a 2CD set of Bob Dylan covers, is released on editionsPAF! NASA plans manned landing on Mars within the next twenty years: subterranean beds of frozen water "may make it habitable long-term."

My 50th birthday party show at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Guest musicians include Peter Blegvad, John Paul Jones, Kimberley Rew, Morris Windsor and Deni and Tim from Storefront. Luxor is pressed up to give away to the audience, then released on PAF!

US and Britain invade Iraq, on the pretext of nullifying the threat from Iraqi missiles. No missiles were ever found. Invasion then claimed to be for the benefit of the Iraqis.

Jonathan Demme’s remake of The Manchurian Candidate, starring Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Liev Schrieber, is filmed over the winter in and around New York. I play the part of Laurent Tokar, a sinister operative.

Record Spooked in Nashville with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in downtime from filming The Manchurian Candidate. Released on YepRoc in October. George W Bush is re-elected.

Record Olé! Tarantula in Seattle with Bill Rieflin, Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey. Kimberley, Morris, Sean Nelson, Chris Ballew and Ian McLagan are also featured along with Colin Izod on saxophone. Released October 2006 on YepRoc.

Begin touring with Bill, Peter and Scott as RH and the Venus 3. John Edginton films documentary Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death and Insects for the Sundance channel.

Saddam Hussein is hanged in Bagdad. Democrats regain US Congess.

Sex Food Death...and Insects shown on Sundance Channel in US and BBC 4 in the UK. Sergeant Pepper’s album performed live in the 3 Kings, Clerkenwell, with Kimberley, Morris, Paul Noble and Terry Edwards as a benefit for Médecins Sans Frontières.

Peter Glake draws the band live and donates these and other “Pepper” memorabilia to be auctioned for MSF.

I have a cameo in Jonathan Demme’s new film, Dancing With Shiva due for release in 2008.

The Young Fresh Fellows, fronted by Scott McCaughey, record sixteen songs in Seattle with me producing.

John Paul Jones and I play shows in Italy and Norway. Ruby Wright on musical saw joins us at the Barbican Syd Barrett tribute and EOTR Festival, Dorset.

I Wanna Go Backwards, a 5-disc, 8-LP retrospective of solo recordings from 1981 to 1990 is released on YepRoc.

I Often Dream Of Trains (and other Phenomena) to be performed live at the QEH London and selected UK venues in January. With Isobel Campbell on cello and Terry Edwards on horns and keyboards.

Shadow Cat, a collection of unreleased recordings from 1993-99 on Sartorial Records, released February 4th.

Sex, Food, Death and Insects with bonus footage, on New Video, released in the US February.

A second boxed set on YepRoc, of material recorded with The Egyptians in the 1980s, slated for summer release.