Thanks, yes. I remembered that after posting, hence my deleting that section of the post. Original deluxe version it will have to be.
The One Who Loves You Either this song hasn't made a big impression on me, or I've lifted the needle before I get to the end of the album every time, because I can't say I'm super familiar with this song. This is the first time this has happened with an actual album track for me. So probably not really fair to rate it (but I will anyway). Nothing about the song really bugged me, but it just seemed pleasant and fairly middle of the road. Nothing immediately drew me in. Feels like the album is going out on a bit of a whimper. I'll give it a 2.9/5, but feel free to disregard this rating in the album tallies.
The One Who Loves You Not a particularly grand statement as a concluding track, but it's an enjoyable romp with fun instrumentation and a nice vocal by Neil. Without being a great favourite, at least this song manages to round things out in a way that means that this is the only album where each and every track is included in my TDC playlist. The best thing about this track is the lyric about dodos in Soho. The demo isn't much different. I guess the piano is a bit more prominent and the banjo a bit less so, but surely there's more deserving material available elsewhere? 3.8
The one who loves you Romance has clearly been a thread knitting together the tracks on this album, culminating in this, well, obvious song from the heart. Until I read other posts on this album, I had no idea about what was occurring in Neil’s personal life but that has permeated what has come before and thoroughly soaks this track. I quite like the repeat of ‘I love you’ three times followed by another couple of triptychs (can I use that for songs?) that sum up simply the heartfelt emotion driving the writing. It’s as if there’s nothing more to say, no point elaborating, these few words say it all because how else can one express the overflow of one’s heart? Until this listen, I hadn’t picked up on the old Eurovision trick of pushing the key up, not once, but twice, slowly building the orchestration as it goes. And as that means Neil’s happy instrument, the banjo gradually submerged, well, that’ll go down well with certain others! 3.5/5
The One Who Loves You Blah blah blah and we're straight into the finale. On an album which is overwhelmingly about Neil's love for Cathy, this one still hits home in a slightly different way. There's always something very disarming about Neil writing so directly, so after an album of Catherine The Great, The Pact, To The Rescue, hearing him sing "I love you, I really, really love you" is very emotionally affecting. The 2nd and 3rd verses are a little less successful for me, but they still have their charm. Musically, I like the central banjo riff that drives the song - there really is a lot of banjo on this record, isn't there? - and the ascending key changes make the song sound like an ending. And then, just like that, it's done. It alway feels to me like the track should be longer than it is, but I wonder whether drawing it out would have lessened the impact or not. All in all, an uplifting, if slightly low-key, ending to album that doesn't always convince me. A 4/5, I think.
The One Who Loves You I try usually to be fair and assess tracks on their own and not be dissuaded by album context, but by the end of Foreverland fatigue by love song is starting to creep in. Also, while I do like a nice love song, I tend to agree with the old line of preferring the ones that don't include the word 'love'--makes them less trite and more palatable, focusing attention on the sentiment itself. The lyrics here are entirely bland and predictable. Since Neil is capable of so much more I can only assume their simplicity is a strategy meant to highlight the base sincerity he unquestionably feels. I do like the drums that pop up (kettle again?), and the "it's worth it" delivery, but on the whole it's a relatively dull ending and not entirely unrepresentative of stretches of the album. Wish I liked it better. 2.9/5
Sorry, life has other plans for me at the moment, probably going to be dropping in sporadically from now on. Catching up: My Happy Place - confusing. Maybe a lot of this album leaves me nonplussed because I can't square the reality with the song. This was never a problem with The Summerhouse or The Wreck of the Beautiful because I have no idea who inspired those songs and can just wallow in their fantasy worlds. But we know this is about Cathy in some way. The way Neil describes it matches @TheLemmingFace's take, where he's whining about Cathy being away when he's made her his happy place. I guess that works, but the demo that was directly inspired by Cathy going away doesn't make sense, it doesn't have the crucial turn in the lyric, instead having the 'give you something to cry about' threat which doesn't seem to fit at all. So I can't quite square Neil's comments with the song, and I feel kind of stupid that that matters to me, but there it is. Then, the music: is the chorus satirical? The banjo, the mountains and valleys and all that? I can't tell. The whole album is very up front, very little reverb, but that leaves it a bit bland for me. It's ambiguous but not in a shimmery, both-meanings-at-once way, it's just a bit unclear. The string arrangement and the last minute or so is nice to listen to though. 3/5 A Desperate Man - Neil in PopMatters: "I also like “Desperate Man” because it’s just an orchestral wig out. It’s a very silly song. It’s not exactly rocket science, just a big riff, which different parts of the orchestra take up at different times. It kind of reminds me of movie soundtracks that I’ve listened to over the years." Neil in The Line of Best Fit: "There’s not a lot of real sort of plot in the songs on this album. There is a song called “A Desperate Man” which is about a fugitive escaping across the fields disguised as a nun, but the story is just to illustrate the idea of desperation. You’re trying to get back to something, and you’re really, really anxious to get there." That's all fine I guess but... as with several other songs, the romantic feeling underneath this doesn't connect with me - OK, he's desperate to get back to Cathy and... that's it. There's no depth there, just as Catherine The Great stays on the surface, saying nothing more profound than "she's great" and faffing about with 'brainier/Lithuania' rhymes. It is a nice orchestral wig out but why bother, if not in service of something else? John Barry's soundtracks are widely available. 3/5 Other People - sorry, this is all getting a bit grumpy. I like this one! I get a lovely shimmery feeling from the strings creeping back in on the last two lines, and I get a laugh from the ending every time. Ambiguous in a good way - feel the jealousy, and recognise its uselessness and move on from it. I'm glad he didn't finish it and left it in this unexpected form; we don't even need to do the thought experiment of whether it would have been better finished off, because The Pact, I Joined The Foreign Legion, The One Who Loves You show that it probably wouldn't. The kind of mutations and transformations that were almost standard on Casanova and Fin de Siècle are virtually absent here; the ideas just don't seem to be flowing as freely. Argh, sorry, gone grumpy again... Let's end with a decent score anyway: 4/5 The One Who Loves You - I enjoy the daring of the lyric, keeping it as simple as possible, but in a sarky way - 'the lesser spotted Dodo in Soho - so rare' always gets a smirk from me. I also enjoy the groove of it, even the key changes. But you can only play the 'intentionally a bit crap' card if the rest of the album is rock solid, and as it isn't, this falls a bit flat. 3.5/5 Ugh, that's all a bit moany, and I don't have time to rewrite it more positively, sorry. My impression was that Foreverland was a return-to-form DC album that I just hadn't paid proper attention to yet, but I see from many of our comments that most of us are quite mixed on it. I still don't feel I've given it enough attention really, but although it's very nice with a lot of good moments, I'm not really feeling there are hidden depths there that would be worth the extra time.
The One I like it, it's nice, but not too much more than that. It seems like a fine ending for this album, but not a great ending (for a great album) that he's done in the past. 3.5
The One Who Loves You I’m really torn on this one. My initial reaction is that it’s a slightly limp end to the album. But I think that’s unfair. Partly because the way this flows from Other People makes it feel like Other People is the beginning of the end of the album, and partly because I like this song a lot more in its latter orchestrated sections. So, more accurately, the start of this song is a slightly limp start to the end of the end of the album. Or perhaps just to the start of the end of the album… What I’m saying is that, by the end of this track, it’s won me over and I think it’s good! By the time the song is firing on all cylinders, it’s a fitting conclusion to a great album - the strings are excellent, swooping around like they’re flying ecstatically over the rest of the song; the lyrics are heartfelt and simple but still have time to be a little silly (shout out to the dodo)… it just all takes a while to get there. And, despite all these positives, the repetitive lyrics and plodding banjo throughout much of the song make it seem a bit pedestrian (if that pedestrian has a banjo). The message (keep looking for ‘the one’ because, if you find them, it’s awesome) is a really good choice of moral for the album, much as the message in The Dogs And The Horses (live and love while you’re alive) was a fitting moral for Casanova. AND, just to throw another spanner in the fire (as it were), this is the one song from the album that’s been flitting in and out of my head for the past fortnight. I definitely enjoy it a lot when it comes up on shuffle; perhaps more than I do when I’m hearing it in its slot as the grand album closer. So I don’t know where that leaves me. 3 seems too low - it’s got elements that make it above average. But then 4 seems too high - the average TDC song is above average. That’s why I like them. 3/5
The One Who Loves You Real time thoughts: I like the piano. I don’t dislike the banjo (though we have heard raaaaaather a lot of it by this point in the album!). Love the key changes. Those little swooping string motifs and the tympani are also great. Some decent lyrics - “the one who is with you besotted” rhyming with “the one who’s got it” is pretty nice. Minus points: The speak-singing “So rare”- no thanks, Neil … plus, it actually is quite repetitive, isn’t it? The key changes and gradually building arrangement really mask that. 3.8 I like @TheLemmingFace ’s point that this song sort of sums up the message behind the whole album - “the one really is out there if you keep on looking”. I guess how you feel about the album may depend on whether you find that message and theme as artistically interesting as those behind Neil’s earlier albums. I personally find it hard to argue that this album is an astonishing artistic achievement in the same way as, say “Casanova”, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a nice collection of songs.
Scores round-up time then! (I’m hoping @Hazey John II will eventually be able to do his usual chart but sounds like we may have to wait longer than usual and that’s fine, I’m definitely saying nothing about life getting in the way of this thread!) “A Desperate Man”scored 56.8 from 15 votes, for a preliminary score of: 3.79
And lastly, The One Who Loves You has so far scored 34.9 points from 10 votes, for a preliminary score of 3.49
Right then, someone correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think there are any contemporary B-sides or bonus tracks to be discussed? Which means we have two things to talk about before moving off this period: - the boxset bonus disc - ”In May” Let’s start with the boxset bonus disc. An awful lot of it is demos of the album tracks. And of those which aren’t, we’ve already talked about some of them, but by way of recap: “One Ear Up, One Ear Down” (Neil demo) “Who Were We?” (Neil/Cathy demo) And we didn’t post this actual track before, but we did discuss the finished oratorio - here’s “Breakfast”, Neil’s home demo of the first past of “To Our Fathers in Distress”.
What remains is a fair bit of daftness, so here are the first two short pieces of it: Them Chattering Teeth https://youtube.com/shorts/1wS0XU_5x-U?feature=share (Edit - so short it won’t even embed properly )
The One Who Loves You Predictably, I'm not really a great fan of this, but I can't even bring myself to bear a grudge against the banjo. Somehow, I'm just not bothered enough by the album overall to mind that I find this final song largely banal, slightly irritating, and entirely superfluous to requirements. I think I'd be more bothered by it of Neil had gone on to make another album in this sort of vein (TDC by numbers), but instead I can just ignore this song, take out the CD after A Desperate Man (after skipping Catherine..., How Can You Leave... and ...Rescue) and put on something more exciting. Like Casanova or Office Politics. Somehow listening to this album makes me yearn to listen to something else of Neil's that is more vibrant, spikey, shimmering to remind myself of why I have loved his music for so long. Anyway, the song... positives first. Yes I like these elements too. Really gives it a lift, along with the key chnages which I'm not quite sure whether I like or not. Not-so positives The way it starts annoys me, and if I've made it this far into the album I tend to switch it off sharpish as it rudely throws me out of the loveliness of Other People. This song kind of reminds me of Charmed Life, and of course, happiness for Neil equals plinky-plonky banjo and deliberately basic-sounding nursery rhyme piano. I'm wondering whether I actually dislike the banjo as an instrument, or if it's the way Neil uses it on his most sickly-sweet songs that I don't like. I can't think I've listened to much other music that makes prominent use of a banjo, and I do actually like that live clip I think @The Booklover posted where the banjo is used to play Funny Peculiar and Songs of Love. The whole thing feels plodding to me, and this is highlighted in the second verse ('finding the one who frees you...)' when the strings come in over the top. It feels as though it should take off at some point, but even with the orchestration, tympani and key changes it just doesn't quite get me sharing in the joyful sentiment of the song. But it is a lovely sentiment and I don't want to be too harsh on it, so a middling 2.5/5 Album as a whole I think this is the problem with this album for me. Too nice! Well, I suppose Neil has always been nice, and I do like his positivity and general niceness, but there's always been something more than that to his albums in one way or another. I think this one is too overtly nice without broaching any interesting topics. I wrote the above last night and then @LivingForever said what I was trying to say better here (again using the word of the album, 'nice'): your grumpy post made me smile, and this bit was where I actually snorted
Them Chattering Teeth Weird, twee, a bit embarrassing. Neil's trying out the accents again... he sounds like an 80 year old from south London! And the teeth thing... makes me squeemish! What was this for?! Oddly, though, I sort of like it - although it only needs to be heard once! 3/5 Your Lucky Day I also kind of like this. He's nailed the nostalgic sound here perfectly, and it is pleasantly short. I wouldn't want to hear a whole album of this type of thing though. 3.5/5 (These scores are much higher than they would be if these were album tracks!)
Woah, those are some high scores for such little doodles Those Chattering Teeth Ugh, no. A George Formby / Music hall pastiche, an annoying tune, and yep - I also don’t want to hear someone singing about teeth. 0 if we are scoring! Your Lucky Day Another short pastichey sounding thing, but what is it pastiching this time? Sounds a bit like “Is this the way to Amarillo” or something- reminds me of those Doctor Who songs. This doesn’t actively annoy me, so it can have a 1.5
Yeah I'm feeling generous... if I were to listen to them on repeat I'd probably want to pull my own teeth out, but for what they are, and for having only heard them a couple of times each, I like them Buy George Formby, spot on!
One of the things that interests me about the bonus material for Foreverland and Office Politics is what is it for? No b-sides to fill now, and no iTunes mandated extra tracks, so how does Neil decide what to commit to tape? The demos are obvious, and there are some things that might have been intended for an album only to be decided against later on but can this be true of these two today? Those Chattering Teeth It seems unlikely that this was ever destined for anything other than the miscellaneous sound doodle pile. I don't dislike it, for what it is, but there's so little to it, that feels a redundant comment. Interesting that it fades out - maybe a longer version exists, but I can't imagine we're missing much, if so. 2/5, but it hardly seems fair to give it a score. Your Lucky Day This one has a bit more to it, but there's not enough Neil to it. It sounds very 60s European, I think - definitely a pastiche of someone or something, even if could say exactly who or what. It sounds like this one could have had legs - if he'd stuck with it it could have developed into a below-average-but-not-disastrously-so album track, and it probably could have fitted the sonic landscape of Foreverland quite comfortably. That sounds very critical, but it isn't really - at the end of the day, he dropped it (rightly so, probably) so, again, it seems harsh to judge it by any genuine criteria. It's better than Teeth, but giving it a 2.5 seems a bit too good, so I'll stick to a 2/5 for this as well - I've stuck with 0.5 increments up until now, and if I was going to mess up my system at this late stage, it'd be for something for significant than this, I think!
Foreverland I do believe that the longer an act exists, and the more albums they have already released, the harder it probably is to make a strong impression with each new album. Your past material is your own greatest competition, and you have nothing much left to prove, and less hunger to deliver that proof. In that context, this is a very good addition to the catalogue. Whereas I found Bang... a poor album with some good songs, I find this one a good album with some poor songs. When I come to rank all the albums at the thread's end, it will be near the bottom of the list, by default. But it can hold its head up. Them Chattering Teeth I do like George Formby but this isn't the most convincing impression and it's also almost too short to pass judgement on. 2/5 Your Lucky Day A step too far into the unacceptable face of light entertainment. 1/5 I assume both these tracks were written with specific projects or commissions in mind, which might explain their existence a bit better if we were to know about it.
Agreed on “Your Lucky Day”, and now I come to think of it, I recall reading somewhere that Neil had contributed something to Matt Berry’s sitcom “Toast of London”, so I wonder whether this was intended for that. I could hear some cheesy crooner love rival of Toast’s belting this out… “Them Chattering Teeth”, though, that’s just Neil mucking about, surely?
Funnily enough, I looked this up when you mentioned it before, and found Neil's contribution. Watch here (song happens at around 12:53 but no idea how to post to a timestamp on Vimeo): It isn't in the vein of Your Lucky Day but I do agree that song is so specific in style it feels it must have been done for a reason.
Excellent find! Sounds more like one of Matt Berry’s songs if you ask me, but that’s definitely Neil’s voice! Thank you for that.
