If I Were You... Yesterday got away from me a little bit, so it is a late entry from me. As I said about If, the segue into this song provides a chance to come up for air after the intensity of the previous song. The arrangement is wonderful once again, and the contrast works perfectly in the context of the album. Neil nails his vocal performance- he really has found his voice on this album. Not quite full marks this time round, but it comes very close. 4.75/5
Timewatching I have a feeling that a lot of people dislike this song for one reason or the other so I’ll go on record straight away and give this a 5/5. I actually enjoy the first jangle-pop version of the song, but really, really dislike the recording on ”Liberation”. The intonation of the strings sounds off and Neil sounds nervous and whiny and like he bit off more than he could chew. On the ASAAL version on the other hand, he’s in command and in great voice. The strings sound full, epic, even a bit cinematic. Listened to it on cheap in-ear headphones on my bike the other day. Didn’t really work. Just gave it a listen on a proper system and it’s fantastic. PS. Neil must think highly of this song since he returned to it so many times. This means that any rating below 4.5 is wrong.
"Timewatch" is by far the best version in my opinion. He should have left it at that. Including yet another version on an album is pointless. It feels like being hit over the head with a hammer that desperately screams "Please notice me!" Comparing this with the Liberation version, it's difficult to say which is worse. On the one hand, I prefer the cello being at the centre of the Liberation version. Of course, the orchestral arrangement here may be more beautiful or sophisticated, but it also feels more boring, like generic film music. On the other hand, the overblown vocals are worse on Liberation, especially in the chorus (which is the weakest bit of the song anyway) and the We shall not be chained/We shall not be tethered part. The newest version is a lot more easy on the ear in that respect. But the main problem I have with it is that it's become too bland, and worse: it's even more slowed down. Maybe the point was to actually get across the feeling of watching time slowly unfold without anything interesting happening. So in living up to its title, it fully succeeds. It actually should have been named after a far superior song on a forthcoming album: "Timestretching". To conclude, if forced between the two, I'd rather listen to the Liberation version despite its added pomposity in the vocal department: it has the focus on the cello and is over more quickly. Timewatch: 3.5/5 Timewatching (Liberation version): 1.5/5 Timewatching (A Short Album About Love version): 1/5
In case anyone wants to be reminded of how they scored or what they said about this song last time (or in case you weren’t here!) Timewatching: The Divine Comedy Album-by-album thread
Timewatching It's too slow, this version. I just don't think Neil ever got things right with this song. Maybe it's the same as with another song we have in multiple versions: "Across the Universe" by the Beatles - they just couldn't capture it fully (though the Lennon track is a much better song, IMO). Neil does his best, imbuing the song with as much pathos as he can, and the very dramatic string arrangement also tries, but it just drags and drags. I'm okay listening to it, but it's not something I go out of my way to hear. 3.5
Here’s what I said about “Timewatching” last time... If Neil can keep reusing the same song, I can reuse my review as well. The only bit I’d change is saying we don’t need another upbeat song at this point! (Thank goodness the “original” tracklist was altered to put “if I were you” where it now is, so we didn’t end up with Someone... If... Timewatching ) I honestly don’t enjoy this any more here than I do on “Liberation”, so it gets a dreary 2/5 again.
I'd feel much the same, to be honest. In some ways, this is a better version of the track - the orchestration is (obviously) richer, and Neil's voice has matured into this style well, so I'd have been tempted to pull the score up a notch, but... the lower key and the fact that he's slowed down a track which I already find pretty boring kind of cancels out the improvement. So, again a 2/5 for Timewatching for me.
It's a bit unfortunate that this excellent thread is titled after the overall least popular TDC song here excluding pre-Liberation tracks. Ironically, the pre-Liberation version even got a better average than the Liberation one. Maybe you should have called the thread "Timewatch..." instead, @LivingForever.
The Flan in the High Castle has to tackle this again, too: It seems that the sixth track, “Timewatching”, is a song that Hannon just can’t leave alone. A riff on Nat King Cole’s “When I Fall in Love”, the song first appeared on the 1991 indie-rock EP Timewatch, while a drastically different orchestra-backed [not yet] version was included on Liberation two years later. The version on Short Album is very close to the Liberation version, to the point that a casual listener wouldn’t even notice a difference, but the song has been re-recorded again with the Brunel Ensemble to match the album’s sound. Rather than just cello, it now features a full string section, affording the track a more cinematic, Walkeresque quality. “Timewatching” fits the theme of Short Album, but it’s clear that it wasn’t written during the Casanova sessions – there are no pop hooks here, no philandering antics. This is an even bleaker, more sombre piece of music than “The Dogs and the Horses”. The Liberation version was already much slower than the Timewatch one, but Short Album slows the song down even more, adding almost another minute to the runtime. No lines are removed; however, in the closing verse, Hannon changes “If I fall in love / It could be forever” to “When I fall in love / It will be forever”, subtly imbuing the song with a sense of funereal finality. “Timewatching” is a love song, but a dark and uncertain one whose narrator longs for someone who shares his ambivalence about love, and truly understands his paradoxical, mingled fear and desire for intimacy: “So I’ll never fall in love / But the moment I can feel that you feel that way too / Is when I might fall in love with you”. Hannon’s delivery here is a little deeper than in the previous version, a little softer, sometimes barely above a whisper. When we reappraise the song in the context of Short Album, what’s striking about [it is] how similar its situation is to that of “Someone”: the broken narrator is contemplating a wonderful incipient relationship, but he’s struggling to gather himself, steeling his faith in the world.
The thing that's interesting is that although he released it on three different studio releases, it was basically only played live on the "A Short Album" orchestral tour of March/April 1997, along with the rest of the album, and then never again apart from a couple of very sporadic appearances in 2002 when he was going through a bit of a weird time! So there are no alternate versions to share today. Maybe after the ASAAL tour, he finally realised that his fans didn't rate the song anywhere near as much as he did, and decided to put it to bed?
Ha! Honestly, I felt it was a much better name for a chronological, historical thread than it is for a song!
This is my favourite of the Timewatching songs. In contrast with comments above, I really love this slowed down version. It seems to add an extra bit of feeling and emotion to it for me, and makes Neil almost sound like he's whispering at times, despite (or because of?) his deep voice. I can understand people not liking it as much (in comparison to the other songs!), and possibly I have a bit of my teenage yearning feelings associated with it, wondering when I would fall in love for obviously only the one time also! Not sure I'd really want to see it played live in a standing up type venue, but in a lovely seated venue with string accompaniment then yes please! 4.5
Or maybe he finally realised that it isn’t that good of a song after all? It does sort of drag, especially if you’re not in the right mood. I think I suddenly feel some sort of peer pressure and need to re-evalute my rating...
Timewatching 1.8/5 I said this about the Liberation Version: I like this a lot more than the version on ASAAL. Very earnest again and pretty. 3.8/5.0 Luckily I still agree with myself after listening to both versions again (although I would probably drop my original score a bit!). As others have said, the ASAAL version is very slow, and with Neil's new 'crooner' voice in perfect form, he really milks it for all its worth, which I don't think is a good thing. It sounds lush and gorgeous, of course, as does the whole album, but its too rich and sickly for me. Why is it here, who knows? Perhaps Neil just fancied crooning it out with the orchestra behind him? I don't think this one contains any animals (??) I think I scored the Liberation version reasonably highly as I like the naivete in it, and the simplicity of the arrangement. Yes, the playing and singing are not perfect, but that gives the whole album its charm and character for me. Listening back now, Neil's singing in this period was all over the place stylistically, but I prefer that in this song to the out and out crooning (although overall I'm glad he did evolve from that rather odd style)! (I don't think I've actually heard Timewatch... will have a listen now!)
Timewatching: 2 I wasn’t a big fan of the Liberation version and this re-recording is a bit pointless.
Just heard the Timewatch version - like it better than the slow versions! Quite Beatlesesque in places (not vocally - the backing, particularly guitar).
Here are some alternative names for the thread: Festive Road Little Acts of Kindness Freedom Road Anthem for Bored Youth The Lost Art of Conversation My Happy Place Unless you'd want to go with the obvious: Sweden Or the ultimate: Long Slow Suicide
Even though I've probably given it the lowest score, please don't succumb to peer pressure. Or to quote The The: "Don't change yourself to suit everybody else." Unless you've really been convinced by some comments, in which case re-evaluation is a good thing. Finding out there actually is an enjoyable version of "Timewatching" was my second-biggest surprise when listening to the pre-Liberation stuff. The biggest was discovering that Neil wasn't the main vocalist on a whole EP. I like that one best. It's not a given that an online discussion forum remains so civil even when opinions wildly differ.
It's great to see so much differing opinion. I imagined we'd have some major differences of opinion from Regeneration onwards, but I kind of assumed that everyone would just think that everything was brilliant up until then. And that would have been a bit boring!
I’m really happy that some people do - it shows that it’s clearly not a bad song (like some we may come to later), rather that it just doesn’t tally with a lot of people’s tastes here. I’m honestly a bit confused by why we dislike it so much - we have rated other slow, earnest songs like “The Dogs and the Horses” and “The Summerhouse” very highly so it’s not that we only like the “fun ones”...
