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Neil Hannon on the Troubles, his songs for Wonka, and why he ‘can’t stand’ The Frog Princess today
With a new album and fresh Hollywood horizons, the Divine Comedy frontman is enjoying a second 勝利，勝つd. But he has more than a few 悔いるs
“I’ve never 達成するd A-名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） fame and I never 特に 手配中の，お尋ね者 it. I’ve never gone above a C-加える, really.” Neil Hannon, lead singer and 単独の 永久の member of the pop 禁止（する）d The Divine Comedy, is not a 星／主役にする who sells out stadia, or has endless chart-topping （テニスなどの）シングルス or albums. His wry, literary music is loved by everyone from Daniel Radcliffe to Robbie Williams but he has never 上がるd into the 成層圏 during his 30-year career.???
And yet, at the age of 51, Hannon is having a moment. He is about to 解放（する） his second greatest-攻撃する，衝突するs 編集, Charmed Life, a collection of （テニスなどの）シングルス and album 跡をつけるs that ably summarise his 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の 禁止（する）d’s career. From 急に上がるing orchestral 激しく揺する to witty novelty pop, 経由で lachrymose 涙／ほころび-jerkers that would have done credit to his idols Scott Walker and Burt Bacharach, it makes a decent 事例／患者 for Hannon 存在 one of the greatest singer-songwriters of the past ４半期/4分の1-century. He is 促進するing its 解放（する） with a 非常に長い European 小旅行する this year, finishing with a 一連の concerts at the Barbican where he will be 成し遂げるing all of his albums in chronological order, two a night.?
And if this isn’t enough, he has made his first foray into Hollywood, 与える／捧げるing 初めの songs to the 熱望して 心配するd Wonka film, directed by Paddington’s Paul King and starring Timoth?e Chalamet as the eponymous chocolatier.?
When we speak over Zoom, as is now the modern way, Hannon is in jovial mood, comfortably ensconced in a baronial-looking sitting room from his house in Co Kildare, where his partner, the musician Cathy Davey, runs an animal 聖域, My Lovely Pig 救助（する）. As if to 強調 this, a dog wanders in during the interview. A poster of the Penguin cover of one of his favourite 調書をとる／予約するs, Muriel 誘発する’s The Prime Of 行方不明になる ジーンズ Brodie, is 機動力のある above his 長，率いる. Perhaps surprisingly for a man who, by his own admission, 令状s albums that are “very personal, little fantasy worlds”, we begin talking about politics, after another 劇の PMQs. (“It really does look like the endgame, doesn’t it?”)?
“I wrote a song on 2019’s Office Politics album called Dark Days Are Here Again, which was about Trump and Brexit ? which people are 解放する／自由な to 持つ／拘留する their own opinions about, but I 本人自身で wasn’t in favour ? and, as for Trump, it felt to me as if one of the four horsemen had appeared. It was like watching one of those late-night Channel 4 shows from the Eighties of ‘what might happen in the 明言する／公表するs one day’, but it was worse than anybody’s fiction,” he says.
His father was the Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher Brian Hannon, and he grew up in the Northern Irish town of Enniskillen in the Seventies and Eighties, where he had first-手渡す experience of the Troubles. He wrote about them once, on the 楽観的な song Sunrise from the 1998 Fin de Si?cle album; a challenge, but one that he is glad he rose to. “I remember thinking ‘am I really going to 令状 a song about the Troubles?’ Because I’d 完全に shied away from it. Part of my 動機づけ for making music was to disappear into a fantasy world where ‘非，不，無 of that’ could enter. But it was the 権利 time, with the Good Friday 協定. So I’m glad I did it, but afterwards I said ‘井戸／弁護士席, that’s that then ? and I don’t have to 令状 one of those again’.”
By his own admission, when he has written about real-world 問題／発行するs with any degree of 誠実, “it’s because I can’t not 令状 about it, because it’s 占領するing my brain 完全に.” More often, he has preferred to take an ironic and detached approach, as on his 選び出す／独身 世代 Sex, where he sings about how “世代 Sex elects the type of guys you wouldn’t leave your kids with/And shouts ‘off with their 長，率いるs’ if they get laid.” But sex, in all its コンビナート／複合体 glory, has been a major 運動ing creative 軍隊 for Hannon. It was not for nothing that his 打開 album in 1996 was called Casanova.?
As h e says now, “As much as I was doing my finest Terry-Thomas impression, I was also trying to make some points ? probably 不正に, because I was only 25 ? along the lines of ‘Yay, I’m getting laid, isn’t it brilliant ? but why do I feel so 有罪の?’ And the album is about my inner 良心, which hopefully makes it a bit more 相当な than a 一連の lusty, bawdy things. Although my Nineties persona could 簡単に be called ‘the rake’.”??
Nonetheless, in the 現在の 気候, some of its songs will be difficult to revisit. He mimes a sharp intake of breath while talking about his racier lyrics and says “we were only working with the social mores we had, but some of Casanova is now a bit tricky, what with #MeToo and all. The Frog Princess, for instance, is a song I can’t play much any more, because I can’t stand by a lot of lyrics in it, even if it is 極端に tongue in cheek.”?
It is not too hard to see why lines like “How was I to know that just one kiss/Could turn my frog into a cow?” are now “problematic”, just as the 選び出す／独身 Becoming More Life Alfie’s louche 声明 that “Everybody knows that “no” means “yes”/Just like glasses come 解放する／自由な on the NHS” now seems いっそう少なく the devil-may-care ribaldry with which it was 迎える／歓迎するd on 解放（する） and more like distasteful flippancy. Yet, as Hannon says, with appropriate 陳謝, “it was Another Time.”
In any 事例／患者, its blend of irony and orchestral pop was a world away from what most of his Britpop peers were doing, even if Hannon’s 動機づけ in his heyday was to look at Jarvis Cocker and Brett Anderson and sigh “Oh, to be that sexy!” before demurely donning tailored 控訴s. “I could never pull that off. I covered myself up as much as humanely possible,” he says, with amusingly tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation.?
Speaking to Hannon is a hugely entertaining experience. I had wondered whether his 行う／開催する／段階 persona of a witty, debonair charmer was an 行為／法令／行動する; but if so it is one that he has committed to with remarkable consistency.?
When he did 達成する his first 手段 of fame, the self-自白するd “支配（する）／統制する freak” felt a sense of 救済. “最初, I wasn’t 奮起させるd by anything in 現在の 事件／事情／状勢s, or by other 禁止（する）d. My first album 解放 was 奮起させるd by bad 運動ing, Chekhov, pollen and Wordsworth. 支援する then, I wrote about 調書をとる／予約するs a lot, because I didn’t really have a life, and I was stealing other people’s experience. But I also had naked ambition. As much as I’m an artist, I also 手配中の，お尋ね者 to be a pop 星／主役にする. I saw these 禁止（する）d around me ? the Blurs and Suedes and 低俗雑誌s ? and thought that their aesthetic wasn’t a million miles away from 地雷 and said ‘Yes, I’d like to jump on that bandwagon, please’.”
The only major deviation that Hannon has since made from his inimitable style is with his 2001 Nigel Godrich-produced album Regeneration, his first for the 記録，記録的な／記録する label Parlophone, which saw him embrace a Radiohead-奮起させるd direction in both music and aesthetic. It was not wholly successful. 反映するing on it now, he says “I had my midlife 危機 早期に! I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to see if we could get to the next level of stardom, and so we got the most famous 生産者 in the world. Godrich said to me ‘I really like your songs, but I hate the way they’re 記録，記録的な／記録するd’. But I was willing to give myself to him and see what happened. And that turned out to be a really good 記録，記録的な／記録する that a lot of people like, but I feel わずかに disassociated from it, because I gave away so much. It’s just the guys making noises in the studio, and Nigel moulding it into something. So it isn’t so resonant for me.”
One of the songs that Hannon remains proudest of, and which appears on Charmed Life, is 2004’s Our 相互の Friend, a mighty six-minute behemoth about infatuation and betrayal. Its brilliance lies in the way in which it is so wildly different to anything in 同時代の music that it takes on its own majesty. “It was my 試みる／企てる to 令状 a narrative like Alan Bennett or Somerset Maugham ? the central love triangle is not really important, and ye t it seems like the most important thing in the world. When we 記録，記録的な／記録するd it, I remember sitting in the 支援する of the 支配（する）／統制する room in Abbey Road, while the orchestra was playing, and when the outro is happening, it was one of the first times that I had a lump in the throat while listening to my own music ? which is shameful to say, but it 全く 攻撃する，衝突するs the 位置／汚点／見つけ出す. I knew that if it did that to me, it would do that to other people.”
Other than his albums, Hannon has dabbled in everything from TV 主題 tunes (most famously for Father Ted) to a cricket-主題d 味方する 事業／計画（する）, The Duckworth 吊りくさび Method, and an oratorio 奮起させるd by his childhood, ‘To Our Fathers In 苦しめる’. His father was afflicted by Alzheimer’s for many years, and died earlier this year, which meant that the 事業／計画（する） was a very personal one. But straightforward autobiography is 大部分は something that he has 避けるd in his career. “There are 部分s of life that must remain” - he puts on a self-consciously hammy 発言する／表明する - shrouded in mystery. I rarely 令状 songs about myself. Often songs 含む／封じ込める elements of things that might have happened to me, but even when you’re 令状ing 完全にする fiction, your life experience colours the way it goes.”
He remains undaunted. “I’ve taken 適切な時期s when they arose, and said yes a lot, and 港／避難所’t been afraid of 失敗. A couple of things 港／避難所’t been at all successful, but I don’t care, because I’ll never get any better if I don’t try.” One much-心配するd 事業／計画（する） that will not, unfortunately, be happening is the musical adaptation of Father Ted, ローマ法王 Ted, for which he was to have written the songs. It has been derailed in part because of its co-creator Graham Linehan’s 議論の的になる 声明s on trans 問題／発行するs.?
When I bring it up, Hannon’s cheeriness is momentarily 取って代わるd by tight-lipped froideur. Although he is still in touch with Linehan, a friend of many １０年間s standing, the only comment that he makes now is “It was fun working on it, but it wasn’t 証明するing 平易な. It’s been difficult to watch what’s happened. I believe in 解放する／自由な speech, but I also very much believe in people’s perfect 権利 to remain 完全に silent on 問題／発行するs that they don’t feel they can speak on. And that’s all I want to say about it.”
There are happier 事柄s ahead. The 解放（する） of Wonka next year should introduce Hannon to a far wider audience than ever before, although he turned 負かす／撃墜する the choice to compose its 得点する／非難する／２０ in 新規加入 to 令状ing its songs. “I 示唆するd [to the director] that I shouldn’t 得点する／非難する／２０ it, because it’s a proper Hollywood movie with so much money behind it. I was perfectly 確信して that I could 令状 songs in that style, but I wasn’t at all 確信して that I could 令状 a 得点する／非難する／２０ like that, which I’ll leave to the professionals. But hopefully with the songs, I’m 完全に 用意が出来ている to say that I 港／避難所’t made a mess of it.”?
He speaks 情愛深く of film 作曲家s such as John Barry, Ennio Morricone and Maurice Jarre. “The soundtracks that I adore are the ones from yesteryear with the big, big tunes, and they’re not 手配中の，お尋ね者 or needed so much. It’s things like Dr Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia that I’d love to have a go at.”
Hannon 表明するs 楽観的な excitement about this year’s 小旅行する (“I don’t care about Covid, I can’t 血まみれの wait! I’m 用意が出来ている to 危険 it all just to go out and do some shows”) and, although he 収容する／認めるs that “I had got to the point with 同時代の music that “it seemed not for me any more”, he is now enthusiastic about younger indie guitar 禁止（する）d again, recommending the emergent likes of 乾燥した，日照りの きれいにする, Wet 脚 and the Brighton 二人組 Barbara.?
When he’s not 令状ing music, he’s a voracious reader of everything from history to the 完全にする 作品 of PG Wodehouse (“Some of which is now profoundly not 政治上 訂正する, but it comes from a Different Time”) and helps Davey with the animals. When I ask whether he’s still in touch with his one-time 協力者 and admirer Robbie Williams, Hannon laughs and says “we move in very different circles…he in Hollywood, me in sh_t in Kildare!”
When asked how he’d summarise his work, Hannon smiles. “Tenacious, because I 辞退する to go away! But on the new 選び出す／独身, The Best Mistakes, I sing that I’m a poet, a preacher, a fool a nd a rake, and that just about sums it up. A poet ? to the best of my ability; a preacher, because I will never shake off my father’s 影響（力） of moralising いつかs; a fool ? 井戸／弁護士席, so often, because I wore the wrong 着せる／賦与するs and said the wrong thing and committed 大規模な faux pas to important people in the music 産業; and a rake ? 井戸／弁護士席, that’s obvious.”?
Charmed Life ? The Best Of The Divine Comedy will be 解放（する）d on February 4?