If There’s A War I’ll Sleep With You

With all the bombs and the bird-flu
We’re probably gonna be dead soon
And here we are in your bedroom …

The Divine Comedy ‘To Die A Virgin’

I thought I would start 2023 gently with an amusing amuse-bouche of an album, The Divine Comedy Victory For The Comic Muse. It is an album I always enjoy playing, not their best but my favourite overall; possibly assisted by the E.M Forster boosted title and some rather fab songs.

The Divine Comedy are more Mrs 1537’s band than mine and I have been told, a rather unnecessary number of times, that she would dump me for Neil Hannon in a heartbeat*. Fair enough, he looks great in a suit, he’s talented, very witty and deeply charming; the least I can do is be magnanimous about their potential union.

Victory For The Comic Muse was released in 2006, after they had released a couple of less-engaging LPs. Neil Hannon regales us with the tale of its’ slightly torturous gestation in the excellent** liner notes of my 2020 release and whilst he clearly thinks a great deal of some of the songs, I get the sense that he does not rate the LP particularly highly^.

I get that and despite the scattershot nature of it, his words, I think it’s an occasionally touching collection of tunes, as well as being catchy and (grits teeth) decidedly witty and charming.

As always for me Hannon’s wry lyrics are the highlight – think Noel Coward, that Bacharach chap, Serge thingy and occasionally even Jake Thackeray, filtered through some 70’s slap and tickle obsessed sitcom to strain off any pretension. The tunes here are great too, channelling all manner of 60’s light pop that probably didn’t exist but really should have.

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So in no particular order, let us pry.

It would take a heart of stone not to smile along to LP opener ‘To Die A Virgin’, where Hannon turns his twinkly eye on that great leap forwards we all delude ourselves is so pivotal in our lives. It is a corking tune and any song that references incessant self-abuse so coyly is, for me, a total banker.

Elsewhere I love the smooth sliding ‘Diva Lady’, a confection of all the uncoolest 60’s references made flesh and the best tune here. It’s a dispassionate putdown that somehow still manages to convey a yearning for the titular femme. Well played sirs!

I also dig ‘Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World’ which occupies a pedestal in the pantheon of amusing/unwieldy song titles. It’s a rather spryly rollicking tune with some wry lyrics about the baffling qualities of ladykind.

So much comedy in Victory For The Comic Muse but it is the clutch of songs that reveal something more personal, more empathetic that really elevate the LP.

Chief among these is ‘A Lady Of A Certain Age’, a beautiful confection concocted in the French romantic style, with lyrics that are simultaneously detached and heartfelt; it woos me every time. The petty vanities an insincerities of the subject’s jet set façade is stripped back to show the vulnerabilities concealed within; the lyrics are comical, clinical and simultaneously very sympathetic. It would have been so much easier to dismiss her character, to deny her motive and make her a charicature.

It is the Divine Comedy’s best track by far, they always play it live when we have seen them and no wonder, it is a creation to be very proud of.

I am also rather taken with ‘The Plough’, a dramatically puffed-up Pilgrim’s Progress of a song^^. Once you shed the comic details, the message of ploughing your own furrow in this life rings out loud and uncharacteristically sincerely.

But let us top off this review with ‘Mother Dear’ a happy, wise and funny song about mothers and parenting, augmented by some kick-ass banjo playing. I listen to it to cheer myself up from time to time. Nuff said.

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So there you have it something to amuse your bouche and your oreilles too while you’re at it, Victory For The Comic Muse.

As always the Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon*^, but not alone. This album is replete with enough orchestral folk to fill an amphitheatre as well as the band; I confess I am unsure how permanent a fixture the band were at the time. Suffice to say everyone plays immaculately well in a highly cultured fashion, the bassist Simon Little and drummer Tim Weller standing out for me in particular.

2023 has begun, courtesy of 2006, with a lightly salted sprinkle of sophistication. A victory indeed.

1164 Down.

*ditto for Neil Fallon. What is it with my little gorgon and men with almost identical names?

**they are both witty and charming, as well as very informative – has the man no ‘off’ switch? has he not the decency to leave some space for the rest of us to be witty and charming in?!

^add honesty and perspective to the man’s qualities. Pah!

^^I have just copied Hannon’s witty, charming etc. liner notes there.

*^in the sense that Chrissie Hynde is the Pretenders.