Don't dislike Love What You Do quite as much as others but I agree it's not a very interesting song and not one I really ever come back to outside of listening to the album in full. It does have some nice touches, as is a recurring theme on this album the bass is great and the way its mirrored by the glockenspiel is pretty cool. I enjoyed that version with Tom Chaplin - I was at that gig and it was a nice surprise to hear as it seems to very rarely get an outing. 2.5/5
Love What You Do Like @a paul I remember being excited about hearing this, and heard its first play on the Radio 1 breakfast show (Zoe Ball?). Unfortunately, I had a different reaction! I actually endured that rubbish for a whole morning's routine, and made myself late for college just to hear...this!?!? I said I didn't have a zero for this album, but this is so crushingly dull I'd forgotten it existed. Too Young To Die, I take it all back...! @Vagabone and @happysunshine have already expressed most of my reasons for disliking it (wow, @Vagabone that's harsh but I do agree!). I'll add that it sucks the life out of me and makes me feel vaguely travel sick, and the strainy/shouty top end of the vocal arpeggio is not something I want to hear. Oh, and just when it seems to be over is that a key change.. ? And an uneccessary final chorus that goes even higher? Please make it stop! This lacks any life or joy, in contrast with both the theme of the lyrics and almost everything we'd heard from TDC before this. Someone on here brilliantly described Neil's songwriting as 'effervescent' - well here its definitely gone flat. Were the band trying to convince themselves they were loving it? Video - I was convinced this was filmed at the Festival Hall - just shows I've never watched it! Its as bland as the song. Is this what people who love what they're doing look like? Is this 'being cool'? Could Rob Farrer look any more bored playing that wood block...?!. Perhaps Neil, after being left alone at the end, was dreaming of a more fulfilling career emptying the bins...? Score 0.0/5.0 Extraneous comments about something from a long time ago: Not wanting to derail things/time travel, but found this insane Wuthering Heights cover while searching for a previous comment. I'd 'encountered' it on YouTube and presumed it was a joke from more recent years. But, wow... 1994... That's, well, really ballsy, and all that Hazey John II said. Knowing the context gives me a new appreciation of its true madness! What an odd and wonderful person Neil Hannon is... This is surely an example of loving what you do!
Consider my "like" as two separate "likes", one for the first section of your post (LWYD), and another for the second (WH).
Love What You Do I don't mind this, certainly not as much as others here in the thread. I will agree that it's baffling that it was the first single, let alone a single at all. But as a song I find it listenable. Again, there's my favouritest little vibraphone in the background. Not really a highlight, but certainly not the worst track on the album. 3.6
Me too. Even though I seem to be a lone outlier for liking the song so much, I can't* begrudge someone for disliking a song if they show their working out in such a detailed manner! *May not actually be true at all times. My begrudgments are sometimes unstoppable.
Love What You Do Well, I did wonder if this would be the song to unleash some zero scores, given that I’ve been hearing people slate it online since it was released. For my part, I don't hate it, though I accept that it's not one of Neil's finest moments! Things I like: The way the key shifts quite naturally as the song progresses The percussion, tuned (glockenspiel?) and otherwise (claves or whatever that is...) The backing vocals are rather nice towards the end I love the recorders on the album as a whole, and this is possibly their best use on the album That French single remix adds a more prominent vocal harmony line to the chorus which I rather enjoy! Things I don't like: The lyrics are basically pants, aren't they? Whilst I don't agree that the song is completely tuneless, I have never liked the awkward melody on the "you’ve got to love it" at the end of the chorus before it goes back into the verse I see what people mean about it seeming "generic indie" and whilst that's not something I especially look for from Neil, it doesn't bother me that he's done it this once. Sorry, but I'd still rather listen to this than quite a few of the slow/dreary songs on the album! 3.2
Ok, finally found time to count up yesterday's scores - and this feels like the most we've ever collected in one day for a single song! "Eye of the Needle" scored 63.3 points from 19 votes, for a score of: 3.32
Love What You Do Don't have a ton of time because of work, but I like this one. Structure wise, LWYD is probably the most different from a "normal" Divine Comedy. I feel like most of the other songs on Regeneration could pretty easily be dressed up as more typical DC songs, but LWYD would sound different (for better of worse) no matter what you did to it production wise. There's something about it that reminds me of Wire's Outdoor Miner (though I know it sounds nothing like it). Shockingly, I've never seen that video before. And just by not being completely stupid it gets best vid of the album for me. I've always like band performance videos. Anyway, not my favorite song off the album by any stretch, but I like it. 3.5/5
I think Love What You Do is the hardest song in the album to score. Sometimes, it's appeal completely passes me by - other times, I really enjoy it. I'd agree with the notion that the lyrics are nothing special. I don't actively dislike them, but they don't stand out especially, and their message is a bit generic. They also clash pretty clunkily with tomorrow's song, but we'll come to that. There is an irony in hindsight, of course, given that Neil clearly wasn't really loving the Regeneration era, but we wouldn't have known that at the time. Musically, I do quite like the song, but it's strengths are all quite subtle. The recordera are used well, the bass line is another triumph (and I like the way it's mirrored on the glockenspiel), and the lead guitar work in the chorus appeals. The chord structure is interesting. Through the verses, it jumps around all over the place - from A to Em to C to G to some kind of B - nailing down a key signature is near impossible. Then, when it resolves to the lovely straight E chord at the beginning of the chorus, it's like it comes in to land. I certainly wouldn't rate it as an unqualified success, but it's pleasant enough, and when it catches me at the right moment, it's more than that. I'll give it a slightly cautious 3.5/5. Id be fascinated to know the process behind it being chosen as the lead single - who made the decision, and what the thinking was behind it. Bad Ambassador and Perfect Lovesong both have so much more obvious potential, and although they had even less chart success, that was surely a consequence of this one making so little impact. Having said that, I can sort of see the justification. Love What You Do was probably the last single to be chosen with the Radio 1 playlist in mind, and I can see that the more generic indie soind might have been seen as a safer bet than the quirkier notes of the other two singles. The gamble didn't pay off, obviously, but it could have done. I wonder whether Bad Ambassador or Perfect Lovesong would have had a better chance of more action on Radio 2 if they'd been the lead track? Potentially, that might have helped the album fare better, but I guess we'll never know.
Love what you do I'm closer to @a paul here than @Vagabone. I do remember hearing this for the first time and thinking it really quite different from earlier singles (at that stage I hadn't really listened to a lot of TDC beyond singles) and actually... really rather liked it. I do like the vibraphone in the background and could jollily sing along to the chorus quite merrily. More than happy with it being first single from the album and one of my favourites on it. 4.0/5.0
Goodness this thread makes me feel groovy...."slow down, you move too fast!" Lost Property: 3.9 Ok so this may be one of Neil's "liszt" songs but, franzly speaking, I like it. It wouldn't feel out of place on another Divine Comedy. Like the gentle melody, repetitive but ok because I like it. Eye of the Needle: 3.5 Not bad. Ok, could do with the verses having more variety but there's nice bits and pieces going on in the background, musically speaking, and it does build up. At the end it does sort of tail of a bit lamely. Lyrics controversial? God help us! I fully expect "the" to be censored in a few years on the net. Could be insulting to someone, "The The" maybe. He has an argument and he puts it in song, that's it. I don't believe in "de doo doo doo de da da da" but I will respect and defend the right of whoever wants to write a song about it. Love What You Do: 4.0 I have no problems with this one either. It sort of lazily drawls into view and Neil's in good voice. I like it's gently hectoring lyrics, typical Divine Comedy stuff like the exercise/exorcise juxtaposition. I would prefer it without the superfluously uninteresting drum beat but other than that a decent enough song.
Love What You Do Kind of mid-range for me. I appreciate the mid-album tempo change, but overall it's not entirely memorable. And despite the better tempo I'm not crazy about the continuing enervated vocals, nor the way words are drawn out throughout the song ("If you want iiiiiiiiiiiit", etc). Not a pleasurable sound to the ear. However, the live version improves the vocals for me in that they sound warmer, more pronounced in the mix, more dynamic, and sung with better inflection. As for the lyrics.....come to think of it, after all the listens I have nothing to say. Subconsciously they must have registered as too bland and generic. 3.1/5
Not sure that anybody has even hinted that the lyrics are controversial or any need for censoring for that song? Other than the controversial opinion that it's a dirge or 0/5, those opinions should be censored actually!
Love What You Do I don’t get the extremely low scores for this. OK it’s not one of Neils best but amongst this dreary album it rises to the top 3 in my book. Not a song I would choose to play especially but it scraped onto my TDC playlist (just because I wanted at least three tracks per album). The song shouldn’t have been the lead single. I can only think of one decent single on Regeneration. Vocally I think Neil struggles slightly with this. Listening to the album, it is perhaps his poorest vocally and he seems to have adopted a slightly different style, perhaps in the desire to change things. A reasonable song amongst a very forgettable album. 3.4/5
Wow, I never thought I'd be an outlier for this wonderful song, but here goes. Objectively speaking, it's a beautifully crafted tune. Not obviously catchy, but with spiralling, interconnected hooks that burst into a soaring chorus. It's a new kind of writing for Hannon, and he pulls it off beautifully. And the arrangement matches it perfectly, pulling off that difficult trick of creating a sense of perpetual build / climb through shifts in the arrangement and modulation. (Spoon's awesome 'They Never Got You' pulls off a similar arranging coup in a completely different way). The production is a warm electronic bath that doesn't sound anything like a Divine Comedy song, but suits this particular one to a T. 5/5 But actually, it's impossible for me to speak about this song objectively. When the album was released, my wife was going through a horrible time at her job (bullying etc.) and the extremely specialized nature of her career meant that any change of job necessitated upping sticks and moving to a new town or new country. 'Love What You Do' was the right song, with the right message, at the right time. She loved the song immediately and we followed its advice, which meant a new town, a new job (for her) and a new career (for me). So, it's a brilliant track that pushes the band's stylistic envelope, but it's also a song that literally changed my life.
Well, as scores are running low, how about another delve into LivingForever's big old bag of interview quotes? This time: Neil on why The Divine Comedy is now absolutely a proper band. Like, really. Aka "Quotes which he in no way regrets now..." "The plan this time round is to bring the band in at a much earlier stage. I'm still ultimately in control, but like in the North, I've devolved some of my powers. I throw them raw lumps of music, and they come up with the arrangements." (Hot Press, 1999) --- As to what the next Divine Comedy album will be like, Hannon predicts the music will be less ornate; he has little desire to be pigeonholed as part of the orch-pop ghetto. “Liberation was the start of a period of megalomania,” he says, “and the history of the Divine Comedy since then has been one of stripping back my control-freak tendencies, because they’re not healthy. I’ve always loved the orchestration element, but I think it’s become a bit of a millstone. " (Launch, January 2000) --- Regeneration was written on an acoustic guitar by Neil, and for the first time, all seven members of the group developed the 11 songs from an early stage. “It’s definitely the way to do it, not because I do less work but because it sounds better. In the old days those records were bizarre flights of fantasy - very interesting ones - but they were never going to be universal." (Belfast Telegraph, January 2001) --- Is the Divine Comedy a band or are they your band? "Every record we do we become more of a band and with this one, it just is. And that's the majority of the reason why it sounds the way it does." (Hot Press, March 2001) --- Neil is now adamant that the labour is shared between himself and the serried ranks of talented musicians in his group. Neil’s sharing sofa space with the group’s drummer, Rob Farrer, who agrees. “Back then, various figures would appear in the control room, say “oh, that’s nice,” and it didn’t mean a great deal. Doing it this way has really given us a new lease of life." “The truth is, we were always a ‘real’ band,” Neil insists. “The best part is that everyone has more of a vested interest now. Before, just being given directions, it was probably a struggle to give a ****. Artistically involved is the only way to be.” (Strapt, 2001) --- Question from Lynn Walsh: Why does Neil always get the limelight? Miggy: Cos he's so lovely - look at him!. He's got a great voice, and he's the frontman! Plus he's a talented musician. I don't think anyone in the band minds. Neil: We've made an attempt to change people's perceptions with this album. I wrote the songs, but there's an awful lots of bands where one person writes the songs. Miggy: With any band, the singer will get the limelight, whether they write the music or not. It's difficult to think of exceptions. (BBC Webchat, March 2001) --- Dear Neil and everyone else, Has it caused any tension in the band now that you're all getting your picture taken more as a "band", or have you all demanded your own stylists?! The Divine Comedy replied: Laughs....No tension in the band - we all share the same stylist. We are all too relaxed for that. (Webchat, March 2001) Next time... quotes from the rest of the band about how great it is to be in a real band, which are in no way heartbreaking knowing how little time it lasted...
Maybe we'll cover this in the near future, but I wonder how the Parlaphone deal actually worked? For all this talk of a band, presumably the contract itself was with Neil, or he wouldn't have been able to dismiss everyone at will but continue with the contract using the Divine Comedy name? On a second point, how much do we know about what happened to the other guys when the band came to an end? Joby aside, I was never aware of anything post-TDC.
