The Pact A gem lyrics-wise. I'm less enthused by the musical backing which is a bit too "French chanson" to me, sounding all twiddle-dee-dee and "thin". Neil really does sound a bit detached in his singing, though I can see how much the words would mean to him. I don't dislike the tune at all, I just think it could have been done better. As he did with the demo, which I think has a better musical framing and a more emotional vocal on the whole. I'd rather have seen a finished version that sounded more similar to this. Still, a 3.9 for the regular version, and add perhaps 0.5 to the demo.
The Pact Views on this album have been fascinating so far in their variety. Lots of love for The Pact so far. Sorry... On paper, this works really well. The notion of international treaty as a metaphor for romantic relationship is interesting (and very Neil) and the melody and arrangement are both quite nice, but... this one just doesn't hold my interest. Pleasant enough, but a bit, well, boring - which is the last thing I expect from a Divine Comedy album. It might be because of its placement on the album again - Funny Peculiar is a mid tempo acoustic led track on the key of F, and here we go straight into another one - but even out of context, there's nothing her that grabs me as much as I'd like it to. 2.5/5
Been travelling all this week (and my travels have not yet concluded) and therefore missed our return to "business as usual" - but I have a bit of spare time tonight in which to pop into this thread my phone reception isn't good enough to refresh my memory of certain tracks with Youtube, so I'll have to skip some of the following for now and return to them on my return home! I like this one a lot, in both the Knighthood and Foreverland forms. I might have to return to this subject once I can listen to both properly again, but for now: 4/5 Yep, as noted I am (partially) back, but will be a little spotty for a few days more! Too tired to recall this one clearly enough on the move - will address anon. I'm fairly partial to this one; it just sounds pleasant and enjoyable to my ears - as such a nice solid: 3.5/5 I rather like that lyric too! Despite having very much enjoyed the superficially-similar "Arthur C Clarke" and "I Like" for personal reasons, I somewhat dislike this one and feel it comes across as a bit smug and twee..... I think it is the performance and presentation rather than the lyrics and sentiment, as lyrically it contains much that does resonate with me. 2.5/5 Another one I'll need to put aside for now
The pact Very waltz-y. Love the accordion, not so keen on the mid sections. If the last song was old Hollywood, this is European cinema, as Neil himself alludes. Not sure what makes him tear up though. 3/5
The Pact Boy, the strings sound good - I love the way the lower strings (the ones playing that lovely languid little phrase which pops up every now and then) sound like someone humming. I suppose there could be a hum mixed in there, actually - in fact the very final one at the end of the song sounds more like a hum than it does strings - but I’ve always presumed it’s just excellent engineering/mixing. Interesting. Either way, it sounds great to me. Weirdly I don’t generally see the title of this song and think ‘oh yes, that’s a banger’. But whenever I hear it I’m just utterly captivated. There’s something so heartfelt about it; this is how I feel about a relationship, and it’s perfectly expressed. I agree that the demo sounds great, even though it doesn’t have half of the final arrangement in place yet. Suggests it’s just a mighty fine song. 5/5. Interesting. Okay, I'd completely misremembered that this comment was about The Pact. When I was listening through this album in the last few weeks, thinking about what I'd like to say, I misattributed this quote to To The Rescue. I even jotted down some notes about how, despite my personal life (relationship-wise) bearing many similarities to Neil and Cathy's, I don't find To The Rescue very emotional, but am touched a lot more by The Pact. Ha! So, Neil, I'm with you there. Not entirely - I can't say it's ever brought tears to my eyes - but every time I hear it I stop what I'm doing and find it deeply, deeply touching. I imagine a bit like a European lawyer feels when they're listening to someone reading out the Maastricht Treaty. [On a couple of other albums - notably the DLM ones - I've got the feeling that I liked them a lot more than most here, only to get to @Hazey John II's rankings at the end and discover that I haven't even (ever!) made it into the top three biggest fans... Maybe this is my time to shine!]
I was going to say 'Never noticed it til the box set, when I read about Neil bursting into tears, and then I got it' - and I sort of do; I got married after the release of the album and the sentiment makes sense to me now in a way it didn't before. I'd like to rate it highly, as a hidden gem. But in the end, while some of the lines work very well, I find myself ticking off the metaphors as they plod by - that's a good one! ooh, that one's not so good - and the arrangement is unnecessarily fussy. 3.5/5
The Pact Like a few others said, the demo may be a bit better by virtue of being less adorned and perhaps a bit more heartfelt. But I'm rating the album track (which I still enjoy) so it's 3.25/5 from me.
"The Pact": My favorite song on the record, really. Love the music, and I really like the lyrical conceit. Hadn’t gotten round to listening to the extras disc for this record yet, but I really like the demo version as well. 5/5
The Pact is an interesting one. I don't love the arrangement and I didn't think much of it at first, but I saw Neil at Rough Trade I think a few days after the album came out and I thought this was the best song he played, it came across really well with just him on a guitar. 3/5
The Pact Many pleasant elements, including @TheLemmingFace's humming strings, which I hadn't really noticed before. Quite a lot going on musically, including the accordion, and the waltzy feel that I believe was mentioned. The strings get a workout on this one, especially during my favorite part--the "a bond born of brotherhood..." section. Lyrically, while the metaphorical construct is very much like Neil, in fact it lessens the emotional impact for me. Sometimes a straightforward message is ore of a direct hit. And I wouldn't have pegged this song as the one to draw tears. Still, intellectually I do understand why this might be the case--that sense of once single now a pair, fully supporting each other. A comforting realization that you can be a target of someone's unselfish love and vice-versa, as in, 'you may have spent years on your own but you don't have to go it alone anymore'. Truly a pact. And in that, recognition of the importance/necessity in each upholding their end. Well put. More on this tomorrow. As for the demo, it's nice. As @ericthegardener put it, less adorned, more heartfelt. Piano, guitar, and simple strings to wash it down. Though not quite reaching the same production values. Call it about even, which is to say each get a...... 4.1/5
The Pact Yeah, this one is neither here or there for me, really. I like the main song; the shuffling waltz and the pretty tune… the lyrics are very clever as you’d expect, and there are some genuinely moving bits. But I don’t enjoy the middle 8 at all, it sounds like it belongs to a different song to me. And some of the treaty-based puns are a bit torturous, so I will agree with those who said 3.5 The demo is interesting, obviously sparser, a bit less jolly and perhaps more affecting as a result… also it’s in a higher key in case anyone hadn’t noticed!
Scores round-up: Funny Peculiar” scored 44.7 from 15 votes, for a score of: 2.98 And “The Pact” scored 45.45 from 12 for a score of 3.79
Today’s song is: To the Rescue One of late-period TDC’s most popular songs! Here are Neil’s sleevenotes: All told, it saw a bit of a Divine Comedy resurgence. The full band was back and we toured the proverbial **** off it, Tosh Flood taking over from John Evans on guitar. We even put a third single to radio, and To The Rescue proved the most popular of the lot. To The Rescue began life as an ambient piece of electronica (see bonus disc). After a while it gained a lyric and became Reconnecting. Conflating the world of relationships and analogue circuitry was a nice idea, but I liked the notes more than the lyrics. My occasional grumpiness with the all-encompassing nature of Cathy's animal rescue life was vastly outweighed by my intense admiration for what she and her comrades were achieving. My Lovely Horse Rescue was making a real difference in the lives of hundreds of mistreated and abandoned horses, ponies and donkeys. And their ambitions didn't stop at equines. I'm hopelessly impractical, not to mention allergic to manual labour. No matter how much I appreciated what Cathy was doing I wasn't about to start mucking in, or mucking out for that matter. All I'm useful for is writing the odd hummable tune. The very least I could do then was write a hummable tune about how brilliant I thought they all were. Here’s the song:
To the Rescue Surprisingly I have no memory of this one making any particular impression on my first listen. I suppose it washed over me in a good way. Then later when I saw a song called "To the Rescue" was one of the Divine Comedy's most streamed tracks, I thought "What's that then, a non-album single or something"? I have no criticism for this song. One of the finest late-period tracks. I can imagine it filling a large all-seated concert hall as the climax of a wonderful evening's live music. Very touching lyric and the arrangement is as memorable as the tune (diddle-iddle um, diddle-iddle um, etc.) 5/5
To The Rescue This is a lovely song and a very sweet expression of love and admiration for Cathy's dedication to animal rescue. I particularly like the honesty in 'I looked for Marilyn, got Che instead' (glad that was changed from Mao). But although I strongly appreciate the sentiment I don't enjoy the actual song all that much as it's just not really my thing (but then, it is a poppy ballad with The Summerhouse or The Light of Day style drums!), apart from the trumpet solo at the is gorgeous. I can't think of anything at all that's wrong with it, and the fact it was more popular than the other singles could serve as another hint for Neil that people do actually like his more serious songs (see also A Lady of a Certain Age). 2.8/5 The Pact (again) I'm wondering what I was doing not giving this the full 5/5 as it moves me more than (I think) any other TDC song, and there are few I enjoy more, so I am changing my score... sorry! 5/5
The Pact I'm glad we have this demo. I think I vastly prefer the straighter demo version as it feels so sincere, and lacks the window dressing of a lush, 'fun and stylish' arrangement (though not my kind of fun and style) which very much detracts from the emotional hit for me. I agree with everything you wrote here. My main complaint about the album (certainly so far) is that once the exciting "Napoleon Complex" is out of the way, the rest of the first half merely sounds pleasant and often a bit boring, basically too MOR. Which supports my view that (as with "Catherine The Great") less is more in this case. What do you think of the more stripped down demo then? Musically, it's definitely the weakest part here, but I guess it serves the purpose to lift the song a little and sound triumphant. It sounds a bit cheesy, though. Once again, I wish Neil had just relied on gut instinct and put the demo on the album, which gets a solid 4 from me. I'm glad that many of you do enjoy the final version, but for me it only deserves a 2.
To the Rescue That second verse brings a sentimental tear to my eye almost every time I hear it. It really is a beautiful track, and I enjoyed it a lot even the first time I heard it, without really knowing what it was about. It might be a little too long, but that's only a minor quibble. The demo is sparser but fairly similar to the finished tune - hardly essential when we have the album version. That sparser arrangement also makes the finishing coda more boring to listen to. However, the "Reconnecting" early version is very, very good in itself. One of the few times where I've found it necessary to include both versions on my playlist. While the main melody and chord sequence is discernable, the lack of lyrics and the electronic arrangement make it quite different. I know that when I listened to the bonus disc, without having looked to closely what was included there, I heard this track and just vaguely thought it recognisable, but not enough to make out which track it reminded me of. Anyway, the synth backing works for me and I enjoy this track almost as much as the album version. 4.7 for the finished version, 4.4 for "Reconnecting"
I love To The Rescue - by far and away the highlight of the album - its a great tune. The second verse with the organ is just absolutely sublime (They're not at all similar but for me a familiar kind of beauty as Eye of the Needle), and the chorus is great. It follows pretty much the same formula as the other 'great' post Setanta TDC songs Our Mutual Friend and Lady of a Certain age with the extended instrumental coda, but what a formula. He does it so well. Now that coda, wow. Lovely trumpet solo (I think its a bleed over from The Duckworth Lewis Method with the Barmy Army's own Billy Cooper playing it) and those strings are just amazing. I think I first heard this song before the album came out on a live stream of some gig (maybe the one @LivingForever went to?) and the string/horn line in the coda was being played by the guitar almost like the solo in Generation Sex and I thought that sounded brilliant - I was almost disappointed when the album came out and it wasn't quite like that! Its a full 5/5 - one of his very best. As for the extras the demo is a nice to have, but "Reconnecting" is gorgeous! I kind of wish Office Politics had leant a bit more on this kind of thing. Yeah its alright - I'm still getting used to it as this is my first time hearing it. Despite owning the box set I have a crucial lack of any devices in my house than can actually play CDs anymore! So thanks to Living Forever for uploading them, as Foreverland and Office Politics bonus discs are otherwise unavailable.
This one? (That’s the gig I went to, which I described as my first TDC gig since 1999, when obviously I meant first BAND TDC gig!)
To the Rescue I'm another one who didn't pay a lot of attention to this song when I first heard the album. I'm sure I thought it was pleasant, but it didn't make a huge impression. It slowly crept up on me though, and now it's a firm favorite. As affecting as Bacharach's best songs. 5/5 (Side note: Funny Peculiar is the only song on this album I've given low marks to, and it's also the only one that I've had stuck in my head for the past three days. DAMN YOU NEIL!)
To The Rescue Just gorgeous, and easily top 10 TDC or better for me. From the distinctive drum fill that invites us in to the last notes of the lovely horn solo, it's a beautiful match of stirring music and touching lyrics. As @lazzaa mentioned, the outro is reminiscent Our Mutual Friend, and I'll add Sticks & Stones to that as well. The strings and horn of the outro rise, dip and swirl gloriously. I appreciate that when Neil hits on a solid musical idea he runs with it to the fullest. No concern about over-length from me. The visuals of traveling down the streets and alleyways, past Chinese take-aways, and down country lanes are an effective technique of adding motion and describing limitless lengths of commitment. This reminds me of all the sites and people Neil flew over in Tonight We Fly. @The Turning Year spoke of the "companionship and mutual support of finding love a little bit later in life" with respect to The Pact. And similarly, To The Rescue illustrates a more grown up sensibility of love in acknowledging the "other" rather than the "self". These are songs that center firmly on the companion rather than more selfishly on what 'I Like' about that person. The "and I'm more proud of you than you can ever know" hits this note perfectly, with heart. And that doesn't make him burst into tears?! Anyway, favorite bit might be the delivery of "yes I did" after the Che reference. Find myself singing that every time. I love the official video and find it very moving somehow. Sure it's hyper-produced with its super slo-mo and editing, but it does better than anything I've seen in setting to screen the fans' affection for Neil, and it's truly heart warming to see him get his just recognition despite (or perhaps because of) 2016 not being the height of TDC. Lovely to see him hit the stage with a shy and awkward wave to the adoring crowd, the hug in the front row, Neil filming the audience, the scenes from the road, all the smiles and good cheer. Cloying? No, not to me. The Reconnecting early idea is wonderfully atmospheric and reflective. It too would have served nicely as the official video's soundtrack. As for the demo, probably not enough difference here for inclusion on the set. I too think it was a good move replacing Mao with Che. After all, following "Mao" with "I'll march behind you" is a bit of an awkward reference (likely intentional, knowing Neil??) 5/5
To the rescue A lovely, languid vocal, slow and smooth, taking us, via the Chinese takeaway, to a string laden chorus. The pacing feels perfect: a journey worth taking. And a nice horn towards the end. It’ll do for me. 4.5/5
