The Last Word: The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon

This is The Last Word. It’s our chance to take a bonafide music legend and ask them about life, navigating the tricky waters of the music biz and what they’ve got on the horizon. Up next, it’s Neil Hannon, the legendary mind of The Divine Comedy.

Where do we find you, Neil, and what are you up to?

I’ve thrown some lunch down my neck while trying to catch Ruben Amorim’s latest press conference.

Are you still hopeful he might be able to turn things around?

Of course! He is the chosen one. He is our saviour. Or at least he has to be. It does feel like we’re running out of possible managers. So there’s that.

We’re speaking a week before the new record drops. What’s the overriding feeling when you get so close to a record dropping?

With the greatest of respect to you all, I honestly couldn’t care less!

I mean, obviously I’d care if nobody bought it or came to the shows and I was out of a job, but, you know, when it comes to the actual thing. I just make it and I enjoy the process of making it.

And then it suddenly dawns on me that I’m in for a world of promo. It’s almost like, you know, childbirth. You kind put it out of your mind and then you do it again.

Fair enough! But when you’re thirteen albums in, what’s the thing that keeps you coming back to it?

It’s just a need. It’s what I do and I really am aware of that need when I’m doing other jobs, you know, like TV and films and theatre. Because there’s days during that when I just need to be on my own and do my own thing.

And yeah, it’s a bit like a glorified hobby, really. I just go into my room and make my little things and this is what comes out the other end.

You mentioned TV and film. Your Wonka soundtrack was so well received universally, so I wondered how nice it is to have that reception when you’re trying something a bit different

Not just well received, but it was actually successful! To be associated with a truly successful thing is really a first for me.

No, you’re being far too modest Neil…

No, but I mean everybody went to see it. It was big and nobody was saying those songs are shit! I did a stage version of Swallows & Amazons which was a lovely thing, but it wasn’t what you’d call big. Then there was an independent film called Lola, which virtually no one saw, but they ought to cause it’s really good.

And then Wonka comes along and it’s such a massive machine. You’re just a tiny cog and I enjoyed it in a sort of masochistic way. I like a challenge and the music was my scene, I like old style musicals of a family variety and I have no trouble turning off the cynical part of my brain.

There’s loads to love about the new album, but I particularly enjoyed ‘Mar a Lago By The Sea’. You don’t have to be a genius to work out the subject there…

I just thought there was space on this record for a bit of an ugly middle. Everything was quite beautiful and there needed to be a darker side to it all.

Aren’t we all obsessed with Donald Trump in a way? I dream of a time when we can forget about him, but it’s not happened yet and it’s only getting worse. This song was written pre-election and it’s just this fairytale of him being in prison and being nostalgic for his old house.

And, you know, the days he used to spend cheating at golf and wining and dining Nazis. I don’t pretend that this is going to bring down any regimes, but it made me feel better!

The record is called Rainy Sunday Afternoon. What does an ideal version of that titular concept look like for you?

I like to feel free enough that I can maybe watch an old film. Something like El Cid or Lawrence of Arabia that goes on for most of the day. But my very favourite film is A Room with a View.It’s very sad. I am just an old romantic. But I have to ration that, you know, once every 2 or 3 years, or else it just becomes absurd. I know every line, I could do a one man show of that film. But I’m not sure anybody wants that.

Looking back at your earlier work, 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of Father Ted and your track Songs of Love, was such a beloved part of that as its theme tune. Does it feel like 30 years?

Well it’s at least 30 years. It’s like a different world. I remember when I was doing the Venus, Cupid, Folly & Time boxset for the Divine Comedy’s 30th anniversary and I honestly felt like I was more of a journalist discovering this kind of crazy pop artist from the 90s that that I vaguely recognised.

I listened to B-Sides and things I had literally forgotten even existed. That was incredible. It’s really bad, but it made me curious as to what my brain is actually like and how my memory is by no means infallible.

I know you were working on the music for Pope Ted, the Father Ted musical, which was shelved due to Graham Linehan’s high-profile disagreements with producers. Are you hopeful that those songs and that show might see the light of day?

No, that one’s dead and gone. I repurposed a couple of the tunes, but there wasn’t really that much written. There’s not like this great sort of avalanche of material that is lost to the ages.

Because I saw that Graham Linehan said the other day that one of the tunes was repurposed for a Paddington film. Was that the case?

Nope, he’s wrong there. It was for Wonka but anyway I don’t talk about him anymore.

Is there any young songwriters that you see yourself in? That sense of humour which runs through the Divine Comedy so clearly.

I have to be honest and say I don’t sort of go scouring the internet for new acts that I like.

It’s always nice when you do come across something that floats your boat. And there have been things. But, and it could be because I’m old and jaded, I’m not a big fan of the sound of current pop music. It’s pretty rancid! That brain mulching sound they put on vocals makes me feel slightly sick.

But I’m sure they’re enjoying it, or else they wouldn’t do it. There’s lots of like alternative stuff underneath, which has a bit more spunk, and there have been times with pop music where you only realise it was good after the event.

I didn’t realise Wham! were as good as they were when I was 13 or 14. And now you listen to them and it’s like a breath of fresh air. But records these days are virtually all made inside a computer and it hasn’t helped. The fact is that the cheaper option is always the option that wins the day.

We used computers on this record, but we tried to record it in a way that was as old school as possible with excellent microphones from the 50s and 60s and sending it through the old mixing desk in Abbey Road.

Recording in Abbey Road must have been a hell of an experience…

The fact that we spent the money we did to be in there for the album means that it’s really not just another studio. And we could only afford 10 days, so we worked quick. I don’t believe that Syd Barrett’s hand is on your shoulder or John Lennon is guiding your fingers across the piano, but there’s something really cool about the place. It’s like a sort of good old music factory. And there’s always cool people in the canteen too. I was walking up the stairwell and my eyes weren’t drawn to photos of the Beatles and the Stones, it was Shirley Bassey and people like that. I love the fact that those records were made there…