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Rating: "If I'm to die then let it be in summertime / in a manner of my own choosing / to fall from a great height / on a warm July afternoon..."
I've been listening to Divine Comedy for not a very long time, just about six years. And as often happens when I become "belatedly" passionate about a band or an artist, I immediately sought out their earlier albums to fill the gap.
I don't know if this is a common thing among "hungry" listeners like me, but when this happens, I focus on that particular artist almost to the point of abandoning all the other music that could potentially interest me. In the case of Divine Comedy, it was a true love affair, one of those situations where you say to yourself "how on earth did I manage to live without this music until now?".
Neil Hannon appeared in my room in the form of a CD and since that day, every two or three years, he knocks on my door. Of course, I let him in, we have a chat and drink a glass of beer, Irish. And we laugh, heartily. With "Victory for the comic muse" (which takes its title from their 1990 debut, "Fanfare for the comic muse"), Divine Comedy enter the sixteenth year of a splendid career that has always maintained very high standards.
Neil Hannon, factotum and the true mind behind the project, has tried over the years to contaminate his music (strongly and openly inspired by Burt Bacharach and Kurt Weill) in different ways and through recent, very respectable experiments: in 2001 Divine Comedy released, produced by Nigel Godrich, "Regeneration". A programmatic title and a project that brings them to change their skin decisively, only to return to a completely orchestral and very intimate (and splendid) album two years later with "Absent friends". Dedicated, indeed, to friends who are no longer with us.
"Victory for the comic muse" is the album of awareness after the change, as if with "Regeneration" Hannon had decided to start over, a sort of "difficult third album," which is actually the ninth.
The structure remains the "classic" one of pop arranged to be by a formation not exactly rock (many strings and winds, as always). So much so that I personally prefer to consider Hannon a "composer" rather than a songwriter. However, even in this album, our Northern Irish friend (who, defying the stereotypes about people from those parts, is of extreme refinement and elegance) proves to have a wonderful talent for the "song" (in the noble sense of the term) and arrangement.
I listened to this album for the first time while riding my bike on one of these warm early summer evenings. By the second track, "Mother dear", I found myself zigzagging down the road (luckily for me, free of traffic) like Nanni Moretti in "Caro diario", experiencing the same sensation I always get when listening to a Divine Comedy album for the first time: a great sense of joy and serenity. A Divine Comedy album is a kind of medicine: if you had a bad day, some bad luck, or some annoyance, let Neil Hannon knock on your door, let him in and offer him a beer.
Even in the most melancholic moments ("A lady of a certain age"), the Divine Comedy have the ability to turn your day around (so maybe it would be better to listen to them at breakfast, before things start to go wrong). Neil Hannon is a genius, capable of making pop with orchestras, harpsichords (present here in more than one song), oboes, and so on, and able to alternate between sharply and amusingly ironic lyrics (for instance "To die a virgin, "Diva lady") and genuine poetry ("The plough", "Count Grassi's passage over Piedmont") where even topics like death are treated with disillusionment.
Capable of pleasantly shaking you with lightness, but also of moving you deeply with very emotional pieces (especially in the final part, where the arrangements become purely orchestral). And with a voice, let’s not forget, truly unique. Above all else, the banjo of "Mother dear", the strings of "A lady of a certain age", the chorus of "The light of day", the "riff" of violins in "Party fears two".
Well done, Neil. Keep knocking from time to time. The door is always open.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 To Die a Virgin (03:39)
Well we've been going together
Since the eighth of November
And though it seems like forever
I very clearly remember
You told me on our first date
What you'd do on my birthday
Well hooray it's my birthday!
And frankly, baby, I can't wait.
I don't want to die a virgin
The other day I discovered
A magazine of my brother's
I read it under the covers
It got me all hot and bothered.
Now every time that I see you
Your uniform becomes see-through
You don't know how much I need you
The "Handy Andys" I've been through
I don't want to die a virgin
The pines and the cedars rejoice in his fall
How are you fallen from heaven?
Oh Hellel, star of the morning
With all the bombs and the bird-flu
We're probably gonna be dead soon
And here we are in your bedroom
Oh did I tell you I love you I love you I love you
I can feel your heart beating
And your breathing increasing
Your folks are out for the evening
I really hope I'm not dreaming
I don't want to die a virgin
03 Diva Lady (04:17)
She’s a diva lady.
She’s a hopeless case.
She needs extra makeup
For her extra face.
She’s a hopeless case.
She’s a diva lady.
She’s got special needs.
She wants chocolate candies
But no blue ones, please
She’s got special needs.
She lives in a vacuum.
She has no real home.
Where did diva come from?
Where shall diva go?
She has no real home.
She’s got thirty people in her entourage.
Just in case her ego needs a quick massage.
She’s got a famous boyfriend
They go out in style.
She makes him look hetero
He helps her profile.
She’s a diva lady.
She looks down her nose
at the shoes I’m wearing
and my care worn clothes.
Such a pretty nose.
Such a pretty nose.
She’s a diva lady.
09 The Plough (05:14)
I packed up my suitcase and left the old farm
I promised my papa I'd come to no harm
And I went to the city where I was employed
In a firm of accountants as an office boy.
I fetched and I carried, I watched and I learned
And slowly but surely I rose through the firm.
But then I discovered my colleagues one day
Massaging the figures for personal gain
I said "I'll not wallow in this house of shame"
I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way.
Gravely I listened to Reverend McBride
Down at the mission house each Friday night.
Heavenís salvation for those who know best,
Hell and damnation for all of the rest.
Try as I might I could not understand
Why The Almighty's all-merciful hand
Should cast away those whose only mistake
Was never to know the Christian faith
The stars that we follow can lead us astray
I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way
I fled from the capitalís bourgeois malaise
And trekked through the wilderness for fourteen days
'Til I found the guerillas camped high in the hills
I asked Comrade Diaz whom I should kill.
I crept into town with a knife in my teeth
And entered the home of the Chief of Police
I stood at his bedside and raised up my blade
But then I looked to the crib where his little one lay
You murder tomorrow by killing today
I'll plough my own furrow, I'll go my own way.
11 Snowball in Negative (04:40)
Smoking my six-hundredth last cigarette
Out of the studio sky-light
Watching the ash as it rolls down the roof
Leaving a trail of grey-white
All through its short life it gives of itself
Giving and giving and slowly diminishing
Until there isn't a crumb of it left
It no longer is, it's a snowball in negative
Wandering home along Marlborough Road
I realize in amazement
That I have been, for how long I don't know,
Avoiding the cracks in the pavement
All through this short life we give of ourselves
Giving and giving and slowly diminishing
Leaving a mark that will gradually fade
Ash in the breeze, snowballs in negative
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