Very late to the game and not seen any of the previous posts on Foreverland, so not influenced in any way but a few brief comments and my scores. After a long wait this album may have been a disappointment for many with its laid back style which may have been a sign of the settled nature of Neil's relationship. Over the initial flush of the first year of two and settled into a longer term relationship. Certain tracks on this album gained a lot of radio play and returned Neil to the public's attention and the charts after the poor performance of Bang (which I thought was a better album). Whilst I enjoy this, there isn't quite the musical variation or inventiveness of previous albums. It's perfectly good but perhaps not the most challenging of listen's. It did however re awaken my DC interest after the second rather poor DLM album, and I had the pleasure of a couple of gigs on the tour which were great. Napolean Complex - Witty lyrics, good but not great opener 3.5/5 Foreverland - Could have done with another faster one for the second track. I find this a bit uninspiring. 2.8/5 Catherine the Great - Similar in style to the opener. 3.5/5 Funny Peculiar - Perhaps a Marmite track. I suspect some hated this one but I love it. Silly, Innocent and a but of whistling. Plus the great Cathy vocal 4.5/5 The Pact - Nice accordian!! 3.4/5 To The Rescue - Probably my favourite on the album. Lovely strings building up through the song. Great horn and the old trick of the lengthy instrumental outro - does it every time for me! 4.8/5 How Can You Leave Me - A man's inability to look after himself when his muse is away, or is he just lazy?. A great song 4/5 I Joined the Foreign Legion - To slow and uninspiring for me 2.8/5 My Happy Place - Everyone needs a happy place to go to. Great. 4.5/5 A Desperate Man - Love the music which creates an atmosphere distinct from most of the rest of the album. Should have been track 2 4.7/5 Other People - A strange choice. Unfinished?...or is it intentional. 3/5 The One Who Really Loves You - Great arrangement which builds through the song. Another highlight of the album 4.8 Hopefully will get some time to read through other peoples thoughts this weekend and join you all for Office Politics.
I've just finished listening to In May, and for some reason rather foolishly wrote my comments on pieces of scrap paper rather than straight into my phone... I have 15 A5 pages worth (in pencil scrawl, so not as much as it sounds... ), so will post after it's typed up. Some overall thoughts: Although In May is ostensibly about someone having terminal cancer and dying, I don't think this is the artistic thrust of it at all. To me it feels like a construct out of which the piece considers the way we appreciate beauty. Or rather the way we tend to miss the beauty all around us because we are too wrapped up in the act of living. It is only in the act of dying that this man can really see the spring unfurling around him, or the blue eyes of the dog from next door. He says he hasn't listened to or played any music, but then he hears the real joy in the music of the birdsong outside his window, which may well have been drowned out or ignored in previous springs. Although his life is being cut short, this person has the opportunity to really spend his last months doing nothing but appreciating what is around him. He has settled up his bills and left the post in the postbox - his earthly business is settled and he can now focus on what is truly important without interruption. And this to me explains how a song cycle about someone dying from cancer can feel ultimately uplifting. Of course the music brings out those elements of it really strongly - a sense of joy and celebration of small things has always had a strong presence in Neil's music, which makes him a really good (if seemingly slightly odd on the surface) choice for this.
Great post, and this gets to the heart of the piece for me. This may sound pretentious and/or crass but I’m going to say it anyway… I’ve been trying to express to people for a while how I felt when the first Covid lockdown happened. Everything stopped - my usual busy (pre-baby) schedule of gigs, theatre, comedy, dinners out, meeting friends and family, work trips, holidays - nothing. Even day-to-day work ground to a halt while we tried to make sense of what the pandemic meant to our business. I also had a terrible flu for the first 10 days of it as well, which helped me to switch right off. By the time I came out of that, the weather had also suddenly become beautiful - and so there were endless days of doing very, very little, sitting there with the sun steaming through the French doors, listening to the sounds of the garden and the woods behind my house. We found the time to build some Lego models we’d bought ages ago, got all the jigsaw puzzles out of the cupboard, cooked some nice food with whatever we happened to have in the freezer and cupboards… I said to my wife “I expect this is what it was like to be our parents when they were first married!” - I genuinely felt like it was like taking a holiday in one of those hot 1970’s summers that people talk about but I’m too young to remember (and probably were never as great as people make out!) When I went out for walks, suddenly discovering all our local parks and woodland, I didn’t feel like putting music on so I listened to the wind in the trees and the birds flitting about. I haven’t felt so stress and care-free in my life at any point before that that I can remember, and certainly haven’t done for a while now since everything gradually started to get back to normal or adjust to a new way of being. I’d give anything to take a couple of weeks holiday in lockdown 1 again I guess my point is, trauma and unexpected crises evidently are pretty good at focusing you on what you DO have and letting that part of your brain take over for a while.
I don't think its crass; this is how you experienced the lockdown, and you're not saying anyone else should or could have done the same, nor taking away from how tough it was for many people. We were in an incredibly fortunate position, and I consider myself to have experienced the silver lining of the lockdown, as one of our neighbours put it. We definitely noticed the arrival of spring in more vibrant colour than usual and how tall the cow parsley had grown along the river, and which elder trees were starting to flower became talking points.
Foreverland scores (Google sheet): The album ranking is a bit of a surprise to me: 1. Promenade 4.04 2. Casanova 4.033 3. Fin de Siècle 4.030 4. A Short Album About Love 3.96 5. Absent Friends 3.76 6. Victory For The Comic Muse 3.74 7. Liberation 3.67 8. Bang Goes The Knighthood 3.50 9. Foreverland 3.47 10. Regeneration 3.46 Four new songs in the last twenty, especially My Happy Place which has thudded to second bottom with 2.66, just above Too Young To Die (2.62) but just below Regeneration (2.67) and Timewatching (Liberation) (2.73). To The Rescue flies into number 6 at the top of the chart, in between A Lady of a Certain Age (4.68) and In Pursuit of Happiness (4.59), but after that it's slim pickings - the next new entry is Napoleon Complex at 36.
I'm really enjoying your posts - every one has pointed out things I hadn't noticed after tens of listens, like the ones above, so thank you very much! Yes, this is probably a flaw with the piece, though it's hard to say. I'm wary of being too critical because we know Buecheler was inspired by a real life terminal illness, and maybe he simply reflected that situation. And I do think the form dictates that he can't meet his father. But you can easily imagine him making peace with Anna, even her being there on the 31st, and him still writing the last letter. Perhaps there's a romantic attachment to the solitary artist here. And maybe she turns up after all, maybe the last "Anna's coming" isn't wishful thinking. But I think his solitude weakens the message of the piece a bit; if we want to pay attention to the small things in everyday life, do we have to turn away everyone we care about? Is it not possible to do this and still have other people in our lives? On letters or emails: I think Tim does say emails somewhere, but inmay.co.uk mentions letters... in any case, it's clearly modern day, having answerphones and aeroplanes; sending messages within a few days of each other, even two on 4th of April, suggests emails. But the musical setting and the formal structure of the prose still makes me think it's set in turn of the (20th) century Vienna or something. I can't quite get used to it being 21st century.
Thank you very much for this! Despite being a piano player and a coder, I never got into synths or sequencers so I'm very naïve about this stuff. I think I also buy into the myth that 'Neil doesn't know how to use computers', which obviously is not the case! Oh, good call! Think it would work really well there - it's got that lightness to give the album a kickstart, whereas towards the end of Side 2 I'm ready for something more substantial. I also find this happening more and more on Spotify, especially with so many deluxe box sets out now - I frequently have to look up track listings on Wikipedia or Discogs to find out where the original album actually ended. The Deluxe Foreverland is at least split into two discs on Spotify, but there's no labelling to indicate the two discs are quite different things. I completely agree with you that a proper release on a classical label would have been much better, and fully justified, even if probably not very lucrative...
22nd of February My problem with this part of the narrative is that we're given so little information (on why he ignored her and why he's changed her mind and reached out to her) I honestly don't care whether she contacts him or not. Well, the next song answers that as the father seems to have conveyed to him that he's okay that his son doesn't want to see him before his death. I might actually be more interested in the father's thoughts about coming to terms with his son's situation and refusal to meet him. 8th March Yes, one of the few parts so far I find affecting. That said, the typical juxtaposition of nature in full bloom in spring with a character dying (which has often been depicted as making things worse for the soon-to-be dead) having the reverse effect of not bothering but delighting him seems a bit too neat and forced to me at the moment. I honestly can't fathom what's so joyful about not seeing his father again, unless their relationship was toxic and the "dear" sarcastic. Yes, the music does some weird turns on this one, which is intriguing, but I'm not getting my hopes up that we'll be given more context. Sometimes I find it great if there are gaps to be filled by our own imagination, but in this case I feel there are too many for me to care.
Good point. I'd also think you'd want to share your new-found or regained enthusiasm for these supposedly small things with your loved ones instead of shutting them out.
I’m not so sure about that. He could quite simply be taking a lack of response as an acceptance of what he proposes… It’s a bit frustrating not knowing exactly how things go down. Especially when considering that Anna reads out these letters / emails in the stage version. How does she come to have them? Has the father passed them to her? Has she come to visit the protagonist after his death and found them on his computer? Or perhaps has she even found a stack of written but unsent correspondence that the protagonist has been keeping since his diagnosis? That might explain why there’s no reference to any replies…
4th of April This is a really wonderful track. Some woodwinds creep in at the start of this more cheerful sounding piece (for I think the first time?)- I guess Spring is properly here! The piano is tinkling again but this time it’s suggesting gentle April showers… “Dear father, it’s wonderful now; Spring is making its triumphant entrance”- this joyful exclamation recurs like a chorus, as this change of seasons (and mindset) makes him want to jump for joy “but in my state that’s impossible” - just as life seems to be leaving his body, the outside world opens up to him and “life pours in”. “What sweet irony”, indeed. As much as he’s noticing the season, suddenly other things seem to reveal themselves to him too. His description of looking into the eyes of a dog and noticing what it’s doing is rendered with a vocal that’s so absolutely full of elation that it gradually becomes comical in its high pitched franticness, leading up to the breathless “Your son” sign off. But the elation isn’t finished there - we then get a full minute of joyous instrumental, with some really Nyman-esque motifs. One of the best parts of the whole piece. 4th of April midnight When I saw that there was another letter so soon after the first, I was apprehensive that his cheery mood would not last, and at first glance this piece is immediately less fun - but it’s not depressing, just more meditative on his part. “Today I heard the Bruch violin concerto inside of me… Every sound every note every timbre… This is how I listen to music now,” here he finally applies his new sensual awakening to the art that he loves and has been denying himself. “It resounds in me … somewhere between my throat and my chest… is that where the soul waits for the journey to begin?” Quite thought provoking, especially if music means as much to you as it does to me. 3rd of May And so what we know to be his final month begins with a stately, promenade-like piano and cello figure, which definitely should be soundtracking a Merchant Ivory film. We learn that he’s been in the clinic for a few days, and feeling a bit better (physically? Mentally?) - he’s very happy with Doctor Eisenstein and very matter-of-factly asks his father to get in touch with him after his death. Is this the first time he’s said the words “my death?” - perhaps not but it’s the first time I’ve noticed. The rest of this track is a celebration of the fact that: “At last it’s May, I’ve made it!” (made it to what, where, thinks the listener?) He is convinced that May is the best month to “take one’s leave” and tells us it was always his wish as a child to die in May (not something many children consider, I’d wager!) and he hammers home this thought by repeating “in May” several times, giving us the closest thing we have to a “title track”. He sings animatedly about the plants and trees coming to life, thriving, blossoming - again, that ironic juxtaposition of his own personal circumstance versus that of the world. Another great outtro, by the way - Michael Nyman meets “Assume the perpendicular”. 10th of May Ah, there’s that “Woke up sporting an enormous erection - how absurd is that!” line that people were mentioning “Nature is playing with me” - how very true, and yet he seems almost happy about it. Logistically he’s happy that everything has now been put in order - “no more paperwork”, he exclaims (although there’s a sinister string motif which follows that line, betraying the grim finality that lies behind this). On his way back from taking care of the paperwork he has “said my farewells to the paving stones”- so I guess he thinks (knows?) this is his last trip out of the house?
We’ll finish this up tomorrow, and then we’ll take a brief look at anything else Neil did between 2016 and 2019 (honestly I don’t think there are a lot of actual songs, not ones which have been released yet anyway!) Should be able to start on “Office Politics” within a few days.
Thank you for this as always! It’s extremely close at the top of the albums chart - and the bottom too; with just a few votes in it. I can’t say I would have thought Foreverland would end up second-least-favourite, but then I don’t know what I thought would. I guess something has to be! Probably a mark of Neil’s high quality that bottom of the heap is still basically 3.5 out 5. Imagine if he’d put out an absolute stinker… (or, imagine we included “Fanfare” in this list ) edit - actually I’m also surprised that top of the heap is only basically 4 out of 5. I guess that reflects the fact that whilst some of us think those albums are undisputed masterpieces, others don’t quite revere them in the same way.
21st of May “I love life!” , in fact he’s enjoying it so much he’s too busy to sleep, he’s watching the sunrise and sunset instead, “existing between the sofa; the piano and the French windows.” (This really does sound very similar to my lockdown experience!) “Soon Dr Eisenstein will come no more but Anna, I know she will.” One wonders what’s happened here. Has she been in touch? He doesn’t say so… is he just clinging onto this as a hope that everything will turn out ok there? “Everywhere there’s music, music, music.”- and nowhere more so than in this piece. It’s interesting that as he reopens himself to the joys of art, the songs in this song-cycle gradually become more melodic and song-like and less of a semi-spoken recitative. “Where am I? Still here…” - then he cries out for father a couple of times which still makes me wonder whether he is or is not hearing anything back from him? 28th of May A bit of sadness creeping in now to this very short track, because he’s looked at the calendar and realised that May is drawing to a close with him still around. “Anna will come this evening…” (ah, great, a resolution to that part of the story!) “I’m sure she’ll come this evening…” (oh wait) “I think…” ( ok, perhaps not.) 31st of May And so to something I’ve heard in isolation on shuffle a couple of times and it’s completely washed over me, but having spent a week getting immersed in this story now hits me like a ton of bricks. The song begins with soft, stately solo piano suggesting a funeral, which is soon joined by the strings, but almost imperceptibly the music grows and changes from this mournful feel to a much more uplifting and emotional ending. (Actually I’m not entirely sold on the music to this track, it does feel a tiny bit like trying too hard to be “the big emotional closing number” like in some sort of musical. But I’m nitpicking. And I genuinely did cry when I listened to it, so maybe I’ll shut up.) Story wise, it’s early in the morning; “I feel totally at ease, I’m not in any pain, in fact I’m happy” He has set himself up with all his family photographs in a semicircle on the floor, looking out into the garden, bathed in sunlight, a powerful image given that we know what is about to happen. “I feel very close to you all - I am with you, father…” (It suddenly occurs to me to wonder - what if his father is actually also dead, and he’s been writing letters to him which never get sent but are purely for his own catharsis? Might explain how Anna manages to have them all if and when she actually does come?) “Everything is joy - everything is joy” - not something you’d be imagining him to sing at the start of the piece! “Anna’s coming (is she?) and May is taking its leave…” - some beautiful violin in this part… “As always, with love, your son” - the most heartfelt (and longest) sign off of the whole piece, and perhaps Neil’s best bit of singing on the album - but it’s suddenly pieced by a final piano chord which rings off into the distance, leaving us to imagine the protagonist drifting away into the sunlight. —— I have to say, that was quite a ride. One day I’ll sit down and listen to it all in one go but for now I think I need some reflection time and to listen to some Abba or something
I admire and applaud the eloquence of everyone who has commented in detail on "In May". I am far from being able to comment on individual tracks yet: I am still at the stage of hearing it as a whole, a beautiful whole. I did not take notes so can't draw attention to specific bits. It's a bit hard to listen to a piece on this theme for me at this current time, but maybe it's always going to be hard-ish for one reason or another. The disease in question being so rife. Interesting the main character wants to die in the spring, unlike the hero of Jacquel Brel's "Le moribund" ("It's hard, dying in the spring, you know"). The moments of exultation feel very sweet amid the prevailing gloom. It was said in the interviews that Anna is the only onstage character, but can anyone confirm that she is singing the words? I did wonder if she was silently acting stuff out while an offstage voice sang the libretto. Whatever the case, it does feel like there is one missing element to the audio version, and that it might be important to getting the full effect.
Good question - I’m pretty sure that pieces about the play I’ve read have confirmed the female singer as reading out the letters… here’s a review from a performance in March 2014, actually: Frank Alva Buecheler: In May - Total Theatre This seems to confirm that it’s Anna reading out/singing the letters.
Divine Comedy History Lesson, Part 38.1 Reading back there, I realise how badly I skipped over the period running up to “Foreverland”, and actually there are a few things worth talking about in that time. After the February 2015 full-band show in Paris (posted twice now!), there are a few more gigs, both band and solo, before the band head into the studios to start recording “Foreverland” for most of September. In November; it’s a momentous occasion as Neil is awarded the “Oh Yeah Legend Award” at the Northern Irish Music Awards (yeah; me neither ) - and a 3-piece line-up of Neil, Andrew Skeet and Ian Watson perform an acoustic set. The new album is finished by February 2016, and then some band warm-up gigs, including the one I referred to previously in Paris in April, which I attended, which was live streamed on the internet and which marked the first anyone had heard of several tracks from the new album. (Incidentally, it was on that same day in Paris that the little acoustic set @The Booklover posted was recorded, featuring “Funny Peculiar” and “Songs of Love”.) (incidentally again, it was at the same venue on the day after that some of the artwork for “Foreverland” was photographed…) On the 17th of June, extremely sad news as it is announced that former drummer Miggy Barradas has passed away at the extremely early age of 50, and Neil makes a lovely statement about how missed he will be. On the 29th of July, Neil joins other musicians at the BBC Proms at the Albert Hall for a special tribute evening to David Bowie - singing two songs alongside Amanda Palmer and Conor from Villagers. The whole concert is on YouTube and looks like it would be worth a watch, but here are the timings of Neil’s bits: Station to Station (08:55) This is Not America (22:24) “How Can You Leave Me On My Own?”is released as a digital single on the 26th of August, and then the album “Foreverland” is finally out on September the 2nd, 2016.
Thanks for the history lesson as always! Just to add, for those able to access the BBC website, here is a video of Neil speaking on Radio 4's Today programme ahead of the Bowie Prom, where he talks about about being a last minute addition to the lineup (and provides a slightly weak Bowie-related anecdote).
Too late to edit but he actually doesn't say this in the clip - I must have read/heard that somewhere else...
3rd of May Yes, that's baffling. Why does she get to read out the letters if the father is addressed instead of her? At least the irony of it is acknowledged, but I still find the celebratory mood strange and forced. Not to mention a child having "dying in May" as its dearest wish. 10th of May Well, Neil has given us too much information like this before, though usually the language isn't so blunt but shrouded in metaphors for comic effect or to take the edge off it. I think only the bits in "Pictures" come close, but even they shy away from telling it like it is by resorting to slang words and euphemisms whereas "erection" sounds very clinical and matter-of-fact. Of course, Neil's not responsible for the lyrics this time. "I said my farewells to the paving stones that I tried to avoid standing on the cracks like I used to" is another of the few instances I could relate to and found touching, as my daughter likes to play this game of trying to avoid stepping over the edge of paving stones and has asked me several times to join in (which I did). 21st of May 28th of May This meagre subplot still leaves me cold. Instead of providing some context, we're suddenly supposed to care about his relationship to Anna. I'm afraid it doesn't work for me. I imagine that being cut off from your loved ones' lives by your own death is one of the most devastating aspects, yet this isn't examined here at all. For the most part, the son doesn't really seem to care about Anna or his father (apart from a few references to his father's new family). The other trope, which is ignored here, is that one's pain eventually becomes so intolerable that the moment of death comes as a relief. So while it may be intriguing that the work doesn't rely on the usual aspects, unfortunately, we don't get enough insight into what else occupies the son's mind. Also, I don't know what to ultimately take away from the piece: that it's only on your deathbed that you are supposed to really feel connected to the joys of spring? That would be sad. 31st of May Thanks for mentioning this. I'm not sold at all and to me it's trying much too hard to be that thing you described, and I feel it's not earned. Whereas something like "The Summerhouse" gives me goosebumps every time. That said, my main problem is with the content of the lyrics, which were not written by Neil, so maybe he's trying to compensate for the lack of emotion in that department with his music. Again, I fail to be touched by this sentiment. He's been keeping his father and (for a long time) Anna at a distance, but having to resort to laying out photos (instead of meeting them in person) makes him feel very close to them. Not buying it. Ha, that would be an interpretation that would make more sense, but this throws up more questions: why doesn't he address his mother in this way? Why does he ask his father a question about his new family once in a while?
Once again, though I posted a couple of interviews recently, I'm afraid I can't take credit for posting this. We have @robbroncs to thank for, who also gave "Funny Peculiar" a 5 (as the only song rated from the album).
