Supertramp is an English group of pop music, composed of many people throughout the times of their activity, but mainly impulsed by Roger Hodgson, the composer as well as the most-recognizable identity of the group through his unique, teenager voice, and Rick Davies, with a more complex, somewhat deeper style, but less graced by genius in everything.
The group name comes from the novel The Autobiography of a super-tramp, which is on our list to read.
Basically, all the songs composed by Hodgson, but one title detaches itself from the others, and that is Hide in your shell, which is the title that I would keep if it had to be only one. There is, in this particular composition, a sort of concentration of all that makes life unbearable yet touching: the loneliness, the lingering, the sensuality in hope and escape, the explosive passion, the resignation, the confidence and the acceptance. I feel it is both a terribly sad and enlightened song. It is not surprising that this is one of the most loved compositions by the fans, although an obscure one little known by the wide public, as compared to the hits of the group which everybody knows.
Hodgson's style is imprinted with nostalgia for the future, the suffering of young people who have not yet lived through what they suffer of. It is interesting that, besides his voice, that sounds like of a teenager, he wrote most of the most important songs when he was, indeed, a child. It is also a pithy that the climax of his aspirations was the Americas, as is best exemplified with Breakfast in America. It seems that he would later aspire to much more substantial ideals, retiring to connect with nature and his family.