I Often Dream of Trains

I Often Dream of Trains is the third album by Robyn Hitchcock, released in 1984. It is Hitchcock's first acoustic-based album. After the break-up of The Soft Boys, Hitchcock recorded two solo albums — 1981's Black Snake Diamond Role and 1982's poorly received Groovy Decay — before hitting an artistic slump mitigated only by some collaborations with Captain Sensible. Hitchcock worked odd jobs, including a stint as a gardener and a journalist. Hitchcock felt compelled to return to music after listening to Wading Through a Ventilator, a 1984 EP that compiles The Soft Boys' early singles. He wanted to make a fully solo album that, he would later comment, "only I could be blamed for". The album was recorded in the space of a few days under the working title Crystal Branches. Hitchcock contributes vocals, acoustic and electric guitar and piano. The vinyl album was fourteen tracks, bookended by the piano-based instrumental "Nocturne". In 1986, the album was reissued on CD with tracks taken from Hitchcock's recent B-sides. A later CD edition saw yet more extras thrown in, all of which were demos of tracks originally included, bringing the listing to a total of twenty-four tracks. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Often...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)