According to the
Victory For The Comic Muse press release, the original idea for the follow up to
Absent Friends was actually a cover album. The idea was to do some German-cabaret like covers like he did for ‘
No One Knows’. Songs included ‘
Lili Marlene’, The Associates’ ‘
Party Fears Two’, The Vapours’ ‘
Turning Japanese’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘
Question of Time’. Though, the idea was finally abandoned because of a lack of originality: “I found I was doing the same thing to each one, and there are only so many songs you can turn into between-the-wars cabaret” [1] “I did a few different versions of The Vapors’ Turning Japanese. You’re not missing much.” [2]
However only two tracks ended up as being released: ‘
Party Fears Two’ was recorded during the sessions for the album, and ‘
Lily Marlene’ (probably a home recording) was released as a B-side.
Meanwhile, Neil Hannon worked on songs for other projects with ‘
A Lady Of A Certain Age’ written along with ‘
Home’ for Jane Birkin [3]; ‘
Mother Dear’ and ‘
The Light of Day’ imagined for films [4], however no demo recording of these songs can be found. Still, we know that the original demo of ‘
Home’ may have been sent to Jane Birkin who said that Johnny Marr played the guitar in a different way from the original. [5]
On the other hand we don’t really know how Neil did get to produce the original demos of ‘
To Die A Virgin’ and ‘
Black Hole’ (working title of ‘
Diva Lady’) which were both released as iTunes-exclusive tracks. They must be primitive versions of the songs.
The finished demo of ‘
Diva Lady’ may be part of the final demos that Neil sent to Andrew Skeet before going to the studio. [4]
[1] Victory For The Comic Muse press release
[2] Metro interview, 2006
[3] Reference needed
[4] Victory For Comic Muse EPK
[5) Jane Birkin Fictions EPK