Neil Hannon

Neil Hannon
Hannon performing in 2007
Background information
Born	7 November 1970 (1970-11-07) (age 41)
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano
Associated acts	The Divine Comedy, The Duckworth Lewis Method

Neil Hannon (born 7 November 1970^[1]) is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter, best known as the creator (in 1989) and frontman of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy. The band's official website even goes so far as to say, "The Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon," and Hannon is quoted in an interview^[2] as saying, "The Divine Comedy will always be my band because... I thought of it first!"

Career

Hannon was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, the son of Brian Hannon, a retired Church of Ireland clergyman and former Bishop of Clogher. He moved with his family to Enniskillen, in County Fermanagh, in 1982.^[3] While there he attended Portora Royal School.

In 2000, he and Joby Talbot contributed 4 tracks for Ute Lemper's collaboration album, Punishing Kiss. Also involved in this album was Scott Walker, a singer whom Hannon has often acknowledged as an influence.

In 2004, he played alongside the Ulster Orchestra for the opening event of the Belfast Festival at Queen's. In 2005 he contributed vocals to his long-time collaborator Joby Talbot's soundtrack for the movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

In 2006, it was announced that Hannon was to lend his vocal ability to the Doctor Who soundtrack CD release, recording two songs — "Love Don't Roam" for the 2006 Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride", and a new version of "Song For Ten", originally used in 2005's "The Christmas Invasion". On 12 January 2007, The Guardian website's "Media Monkey" diary column reported that Doctor Who fans from the discussion forum on the fan website Outpost Gallifrey were attempting to organise mass downloads of the Hannon-sung "Love Don't Roam", which was available as a single release on the UK iTunes store. This was in order to attempt to exploit the new UK singles chart download rules, and get the song featured in the Top 40 releases.^[4]

The same year, Hannon added his writing and vocal talents to the Air album Pocket Symphony, released in the United States on 6 March 2007. He is featured on the track Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping, for which he wrote the lyrics. This song had been originally written for and sung by Charlotte Gainsbourg on her album, 5:55. Though it was not included in its 2006 European release, it was added as a bonus track for its American release on 24 April 2007. Consequently, two versions of the same song on two different albums were released within two months.

Hannon won the 2007 Choice music award for his 2006 album, 'Victory for the Comic Muse'. It was announced the next day that he left EMI by 'mutual consent'.

When the band Keane played at the O2 Arena in London in July, "A Bad Dream" was introduced by Hannon. He introduced it by reading the poem "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" by W.B. Yeats, upon which the song is based.

He is credited with composing the theme music for the comedy shows The IT Crowd, and Father Ted, the latter being a tune specially written for the show that was later reworked into The Divine Comedy's "Songs Of Love" from their breakthrough album Casanova. Both shows were created or co-created by Graham Linehan. For the Father Ted episode A Song For Europe, Hannon co-wrote and sang My Lovely Horse, a deliberately bad song that Fathers Ted and Dougal enter into Eurosong (a parody of the Eurovision Song Contest). In the same episode, Hannon wrote the 'typical' eurovision ballad that is sung by Father Ted's nemesis, and Hannon appears on stage with him as one of the backing singers. A dream sequence in the episode shows Ted and Dougal in My Lovely Horse's pop video, with Hannon singing. As well as this, 'Eoin McLove' sings "My Lovely Mayo Mammy", but his voice and the song were both contributed by Hannon. When a raffle is being held in order to raise funds to repair the roof of the parochial house, the Kraftwerk-esque quadrio of priests enlisted to perform play an electronic piece of music composed and performed by him. Both of the advertisements for telephone numbers; in The IT Crowd (the new emergency number) and Father Ted (Priest Chatback) have jingles composed by Hannon. In the episode A Christmassy Ted, his name is one of the guesses given by Mrs. Doyle, in finding out the name of the mysterious guest. He's considered one of the last crooners in pop landscape.^[5]

A new Divine Comedy album was originally due for release towards the end of 2009. The release of "Bang Goes the Knighthood" was delayed till May 2010.

Hannon has also collaborated with Thomas Walsh, from the Irish band Pugwash, to create a cricket themed pop album under the name The Duckworth Lewis Method. The first single, "The Age of Revolution", was released in June 2009, and a full length album released the week after.^[6][7]

Discography (of The Divine Comedy)

• Fanfare for the Comic Muse – July 1990
• Liberation – August 1993
• Promenade – March 1994
• Casanova – April 1996
• A Short Album About Love – February 1997
• Fin de Siècle – August 1998
• A Secret History... The Best of the Divine Comedy – August 1999
• Regeneration – March 2001
• Absent Friends – March 2004
• Victory for the Comic Muse – June 2006
• Bang Goes the Knighthood - May 2010

Tracks on other albums

• The Cake Sale (compilation) – "Aliens"
• Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack (compilation) – "Song for Ten" (performer)
• Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack (compilation) – "Love Don't Roam" (performer)
• Amélie (soundtrack) (compilation) – "Les Jours tristes" (instrumental version) (co-writer)
• L'Absente by Yann Tiersen – "Les Jours tristes" (English version) (co-writer and performer)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Soundtrack (compilation) – "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" (performer)
• Reload by Tom Jones – "All Mine" (as The Divine Comedy) (performer)
• Pocket Symphony by Air – "Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping" (writer and performer)
• Songs from the Deep Forest by Duke Special – "Our Love Goes Deeper Than This" (performer)
• Hyacinths and Thistles by The 6ths – "The Dead Only Quickly" (singer)
• Eleven Modern Antiquities by Pugwash – "Take Me Away" (performer)
• Punishing Kiss by Ute Lemper – (multiple tracks) (performer and writer)
• Les piqûres d'araignée by Vincent Delerm – "Favourite Song" (duet track)
• A Mãe by Rodrigo Leão – "Cathy" (performer)
• God Help the Girl by God Help the Girl – "Perfection as a Hipster" Neil Hannon with Catherine Ireton (performer)

See also

• The Duckworth Lewis Method
• Tinsel and Marzipan

References

1. ^ Neil Hannon at the Internet Movie Database
2. ^ "The Divine Comedy – Neil Hannon, locked in a room". 1999. http://www.musicomh.com/interviews/neil-hannon.htm. 
3. ^ "The Church of Ireland Diocesan Press Release". 29 October 2003. http://www.ireland.anglican.org/archives/pressreleases/prarchive2001/hanpres.html. 
4. ^ "Who's in the pop charts?". Guardian Unlimited. 12 January 2007. http://media.guardian.co.uk/diary/. Retrieved 13 January 2007. 
5. ^ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeWITeExEy4&feature=related 
6. ^ "interview with The Duckworth Lewis Method". BBC News. 21 May 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8061000/8061068.stm. Retrieved 11 June 2009. 
7. ^ "Interview about cricket and music". BBC News. 21 May 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8061417.stm. Retrieved 11 June 2009. 

External links

• Biography of Neil Hannon – part of the official Divine Comedy website
• Photos and Recordings of Neil Hannon's visit to the College Historical Society
• a short site about The Divine Comedy
• Culture Northern Ireland

Persondata
Name	Hannon, Neil
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	7 November 1970
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death