Creativity Quote by Robyn Hitchcock

There’s a weary comedy in that line: not the diva kind, but the survivor’s kind. Robyn Hitchcock frames “any more guitarists” like an exhausted food group. It’s a joke with teeth, aimed at a rock mythology that treats guitars as both religion and workplace hazard.

Context does a lot of the work. The Soft Boys were a band of dazzling, tangled interplay, with Kimberley Rew’s guitar lines weaving around Hitchcock’s songs in a way that could feel like chemistry or competition depending on the night. When a group’s identity is built on two guitars arguing beautifully in public, the breakup leaves a particular hangover: not just emotional fallout, but a learned aversion to the entire dynamic. Hitchcock’s phrasing suggests he’s not rejecting the instrument so much as the social ecosystem that comes with it: ego, volume, endless “arrangement” debates, the subtle power struggle over whose part is the song.

The intent reads as a pivot toward autonomy. Post-Soft Boys, Hitchcock’s solo path often leaned into songwriting as an eccentric, self-contained engine, where guitars could be textures rather than co-authors demanding equal billing. The subtext is also a quiet compliment. You only swear off a category when the last example set an impossible standard or left a bruise. “After the Soft Boys” positions the band as both peak experience and cautionary tale: so potent it made the next version of “working with guitarists” feel like diminishing returns.