Robyn Hitchcock has released his new memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left, via Akashic Books.

The memoir includes original illustrations and Hitchcock details a groundbreaking year via his own experiences, showing how a 12-month span redefined the future and left an indelible mark on his own work as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Hitcock details going away to school at the age of 13 and with the help of his school’s antiquated gramophone, discovering the early songs of Bob Dylan and encountering Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The latter shaped his own work and worldview forever to come.

The book documents encounters with a young Brian Eno, and the music of Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, music that ultimately inspires him to play his first guitar and begin writing songs of his own.

He shares:

1967 is the point when I and the world went through the change. It was all just blissful synchronicity as I grew nine inches in 15 months, just as Dylan was electrified and pop groups turned into rock bands. Arguably as much was lost as was gained, but at the same time, you had Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd and others producing music that couldn’t have even been described three years earlier. You had The Beatles wearing suits and ties producing inaudible shows with tiny amplifiers, in many ways playing to the old rules of showbiz, and then suddenly up came Dylan with his thousand-watt PA and Jimi Hendrix with his Marshall stacks, and the whole thing erupted.