Ask a simple question. Get a bizarro answer.

We'd expect nothing less from Robyn Hitchcock, British rocker and surrealist who arrives here Monday on a tour that departs from his typical concert set to revisit one of his classics.

Hitchcock will be performing songs from 1984's "I Often Dream of Trains," his third album and breakthrough as a solo artist. From 1976 to '81, Hitchcock had been a member of the Soft Boys, a band that shunned the punk rock wave for a sound that owed more to the psychedelic folk-rock of Syd Barrett.

Disenchanted with his overproduced New Wave-drenched second solo record, "Groovy Decay," Hitchcock put his career aside for a short time, during which he wrote lyrics for Captain Sensible of the Damned. Then, he returned with "Trains," a stripped-down, mostly acoustic affair that brought the focus back to his wildly imaginative songwriting with memorable songs like the Lennon-esque "Trams of Old London," the rag-tag "Ye Sleeping Nights of Jesus" and the dreamy "Autumn Is Your Last Chance."

Hitchcock will offer those songs along with favorites from later in his career, which hit its stride in '86 with "Element of Light." The 55-year-old singer-songwriter, who appears in the current Jonathan Demme film "Rachel Getting Married," recently sat down for an e-mail interview.

What made you want to revisit "I Often Dream of Trains"?

It's my home really, where I come from. Phantom bourgeois Home Counties England, where people can't say what's on their minds so they say "Mustn't grumble." It's probably not like that now, maybe it never was. But home is always an imaginary place.

1984 -- this was a year that Prince did "Purple Rain," Springsteen did "Born in the USA," The Smiths debuted. It doesn't seem like it was a time of stripped-down music. Is that right?

You're correct. It wasn't. I played a friend of mine "Heartful of Leaves," and he advised me to not listen to the radio for a year, to see what I came up with. I didn't have to try too hard. But even "Trains" has chorused guitars, so I didn't escape completely. Being out of time is great on the hour, but makes you invisible to the minute.

What was going on in your life when you were making that record?

I was processing what had gone on in my life years before. Right then, I was in suspended animation and had all but stopped my clock. Then I discovered America and moved into the present (which is now yellowing history).

When you listen to the lyrics, do you still connect with them? Do you feel like the person who wrote them?

Mostly. A few of them have drifted off my emotional radar so I've replaced them live with other songs from that era that I still like singing. Did you know I was a singer?

How did people respond to the surrealism?

Surrealism is a modern term for what happens in dreams, I think. Are dreams an escape from life or simply a reflection of it, where familiar things are in weird places? Dreams can be nightmares -- is going into your head an escape or a confrontation with something horrible? People who took the time to listen to the record got absorbed. Some of them are still in it.

What is your favorite song on the album?

The two instrumentals "Nocturne" and "Heartful of Leaves" I was very proud of; they had no words but more feeling, maybe. 'Autumn Is Your last Chance' is my favorite song on the record -- it has a similar feel to the instrumentals. The engineer Iain O'Higgins and I did a grand job with the tape loops on the voices at the end, in those pre-sampling days.

Do you have any new music in the works?

Constantly. There is a new record with the Venus 3 (Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin) due out in February on YepRoc, "Goodnight Oslo." Plus an unreleased record, "Figaro Plinth," recorded in my house in 2006 with the V3 and a few guests. One day that, too, will appear. Andy Partridge and I are still gestating material, additionally.

What was it like working on "Rachel Getting Married"?

It was a party, hardly work at all. Rachel and Sidney got married a few times, and I sang by the pool. Then we went into a tent with 15 other musicians and some Brazilian drummers and dancers who went berserk -- even I danced. (Last time I danced, my lower back went out and I came to Pittsburgh where Dr. [John] Talarico the chiropractor slammed it back into shape. Please say hello to Dr. Talarico!) "Rachel" is an awesome film, intense and upsetting -- you cannot breeze through it on Hollywood cables, you have to feel the pain of all the characters, especially Kym (Anne Hathaway).

Finally, what do you make of the election of Barack Obama?

There could not be better news on this Earth. I hope people will forgive him the compromises he will have to make as president; he seems sane, grounded and statesmanlike. But America has a tendency to assassinate its great men. How great can Obama afford to be? People in Chicago say he's a good man. And a good man always knows his limitations ...