The Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon.
He is a singer, lyricist, composer and musician and he produces his records. He also owns his label: Divine Comedy Records. He worked with Tom Jones and Robbie Williams, to cite a few, and wrote songs for Ute Lemper or Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Neil Hannon created The Divine Comedy in the late 80s with two schoolmates. Together, they recorded an album, Fanfare For The Comic Muse, but the band split up shortly after.
In September 1993, Neil Hannon took up the name The Divine Comedy to release Liberation. From that time on, TDC was to be a concept led by one man, though sometimes involving many musicians.
In 1996, the single Something For The Weekend, taken from the album Casanova, unexpectedly raised TDC up into the British charts.
With the turn of the century, TDC signed with Parlophone, under which label his released three albums: Regeneration, Absent Friends and Victory For The Comic Muse.
Neil Hannon claims influence by Electric Light Orchestra, Scott Walker, Jacques Brel, Kurt Weil, U2, REM or also Michael Nyman. Neil's songs are famous for their irony as well as their baroque orchestration and have influenced Rufus Wrainwright, Duke Special, The Thrills and Vincent Delerm and Yann Tiersen in France.
a short site is dedicated to Neil Hannon and The Divine Comedy, but also to the people who have worked with him, like Joby Talbot and Bryan Mills, who enjoy a brilliant solo career.
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Latest news (14/02/2012)
A book said to collect all of Neil Hannon’s lyrics will be published on the 30th April by The Lyric Book Company. Entitled The Lyrics Of Neil Hannon, it will only be available via web orders for 10£.
Neil Hannon declared about this upcoming release: “I am delighted that The Lyric Book Company have taken it upon themselves to publish ‘The Lyrics Of Neil Hannon’. My thanks to them for all their hard work in getting it together. My personal title preference was ‘The Bizarre Ramblings of a Romantic Idiot’ but it wasn’t up to me.
When we began the compilation process we had to decide what and what not to include. We thought long and hard about it, then included everything. Not because it’s all fantastic (far from it) but because it’s meant to be more of a reference book than a rip roaring page turner. Please forgive some of the youthful naivite. Not to mention the aged stupidity.
So there you are, the stuff in my brain, chopped up and rhymed. Enjoy.”
Latest updates (26/08/2011)
We are very excited to present the latest addition to a short site. The songs section has been updated to feature the complete scores of all Promenade album songs.
For each song, you can download a zip file featuring the scores in PDF format for one or every instruments, as well as a MIDI file:
- Bath
- Going Downhill Fast
- The Booklovers
- A Seafood Song
- Geronimo
- Don’t Look Down
- When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe
- The Summerhouse
- Neptune’s Daughter
- A Drinking Song
- Ten Seconds To Midnight
- Tonight We Fly
Or you can download a zip of all full scores in a single ‘songbook’ PDF with the MIDI files.
Thanks go to the contributors, especially to Charlotte, Richard and Jon.
And, as a bonus, to celebrate the forthcoming tour of Swallows & Amazons, you can find the piano chords of ‘Like Robinson Crusoe’ as played by Neil Hannon during last year’s tour.
Note: the MIDI playback may differ from a computer to another, therefore you may not rely on them to rate the accuracy of the transcription.