| Product: |
A Short Album About Love - Divine Comedy |
| Date: |
22.07.01 (55 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Now that the Divine Comedy (DivCom hereafter) have become the sultry, biting, cynical band we perhaps always wanted them to be, the albums before Regeneration have a certain nostalgic quality about them. They are best remembered for The Frog Princess, Generation Sex, National Express and Something for the Weekend. Although all fairytale-like pastiches on British life, there was a serious almost sardonic criticism inherent in the work of the DivCom but it is the jolly hostess with an arse the size of a small country that persists. Regeneration shouldn’t have been the surprise it was to so many. The themes have always been there
A Short Album about Love does not really fit into that “oops missus” cheeky yet dandy style that Neil Hannon so successfully propagated against the britpop background of effete scruffy boys in tight tshirts and butch girls with severe haircuts and Doc Martens. It is in many ways the darker side of DivCom in sharp focus: perverse, sometimes solemn, shocking and uncomfortable but pleasing in their accuracy and humour.
This album is also remarkable for the speed with which it was recorded. For a number of reasons Divcom could only get together for a weekend and the whole album had be recorded in that time so the scores, lyrics and arrangements were prepared in advance and a hasty schedule of rehearsal adhered to and the songs recorded. The highlight, however, must have been the public concert at the end of the weekend to perform all the songs. This extraordinary schedule has certainly imbued the album with an energy and spirit that is rare.
There are only seven songs on the album:
In Pursuit of Happiness
The essential question behind this opener is that which asks whether it is a crime to fall in love. On one hand it is measured and polite, almost asking permission to fall in love and yet on the other this is song of declaration that cannot be altered. It’s love, what are you going
to do about it?
Two good lyrics: I’m not the kind to fall in love without good reason. And if that’s a crime then baby I’m committing high treason
And: True happiness lies beyond your fries and happy burger.
Everybody knows (Except You)
A song about unrequited love. Neil Hannon tenderly lists all the people that know about his love. Some are important. Others are inconsequential but the one person that doesn’t know is the most important: the one he loves. Although an upbeat song, marked by the determination to get the girl it is underpinned by a desperation marked by the tortured bellow “I’m going crazy baby.
Choice lyric: I told the passers by, I made a small boy cry, I’ll get through to you if it’s the last thing that I do
Someone
The mood of the album changes somewhat by this third track. It questions the changing attitudes to love as one grows older. It’s almost as if after years as a player, who never took it all too seriously, a lover realises that he has fallen in love having doubted it was real for years. The shrill violins are central to a modern and driving orchestration that makes this one of the darkest tracks on the CD.
Opening Lyric: Someone I once knew, told someone like you that love is just a word, now I’m not so sure that’s true.
If….
Devotion and obsession. What stands between them? When does an admirer become a stalker? This song expresses the lengths that people will go to win the heart of a loved one and whilst some are whimsical and sweet. Others are dangerous and threatening. And whilst some aspects of this song are sinister, and the repetitive melody and arrangement emphasize that, the motives are pure.
Best lyric: If you were a tree I could put my arms around you, and you could not complain. If you were a tree I could carve my name into your side and you would not cry, because trees don’t cry.
If I were you (I’d be through with me)
This track has at once a self-loathing and louche message which is one half of a couple pointing out his failings and challenging his partner to explain why she puts up with them. He urges her to get a better lover, a more perfect partner better matched to her wonder. However, for all the failing it is obvious that this challenge is only extended
Core lyric: If I were you I’d look at me and fail to see the things I see in you
Timewatching
A melancholic dirge of dark, deep strings and little energy begging to know when love will come. A vague sketch is drawn of a romance perhaps long gone or imagined and it is this idyll that is loged. For. Certainl;y the most enigmatic piece on this little album and worth listening to as its strength is more than the sum of its parts. The atmosphere is key.
Choice lyric: When I fall apart, put me back together.
I’m all you need.
The triumphant swansong of the album, this track is drunk on the possibilities of true love. Hannon urges his desired to give up impractical hopes of a knight in shining armour or a frog that turns into a prince and embrace him, because he loves her. Glorious flourishes, weighty sounds, dominating vocals and the optimism of the the fact that “I’m all you need” brings this sweet and perfect little album about love to an intoxicating finish.
Lyric: Baby, I’m in love with you. And our love can go on and on.
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