We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. T. Bossenger wrote that, with Casanova, Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon "started going for a more straightforward pop tone as the base for his songwriting", resulting in the album having a more Britpop flow to it. When the bass gets slinky and busy during passages on “Charge” and “A Woman of the World” there are echoes of Climate of Hunter to be heard. Two of Casanova 's songs were originally composed by Hannon as potential theme tunes for the 1995 sitcom Father Ted: Hannon's first attempt was rejected, and he reworked it to become "A Woman of the World"; his second attempt was accepted and used as the theme for the series, but was later reworked as "Songs of Love", eschewing the original version's guitar for harpsichord. The CD comes with a booklet of photos, credits and extensive liner notes written by Neil covering the context and inspiration behind the album and its songs.

Recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios the song is the most grandiose of 'Casanova' and may even have you shedding a tear as Hannon plays out the record's last goodbye. I promptly went out and bought Scott 1 – 4, and over the following years I consumed about everything I could in the Scott Walker universe. I rewatched the show recently, and while I did laugh plenty, I also winced a great deal, amazed that so much offensive detail didn’t irk me at all when I was younger.For some, the lyrics might not make for easy listening (even though a lot is left to innuendo and imagination), but it also speaks to Hannon’s skill at painting characters with depth and arcs over the course of just a song. Il faudra beaucoup jouer à cache-cache entre l'éprouvante démesure du son et l'étroitesse des sentiments trop humains (lubricité, jalousie, rancœur, etc.

He can turn an unsuspecting phrase into a magnificent weapon on a whim; the kind that can strike you both immediately and decades later with the same force. Jeremy Lee of ABC News considered that this record brought Neil Hannon "closer to the orchestral pop sound he'd been dreaming of. The rubber brass, marimba, and wide-spanning orchestration on “Middle-Class Heroes” makes it feel like it could fit onto Scott 2 all too perfectly. Casanova is Hannon at his best, showing his range, his talent, and his inventive mind as he takes in the world around him. Truly a poet of his age, he has a magnificent skill of encapsulating everyday woe, everyday love, and the everyday feelings of every day into witty, deprecating couplets.Take the aforementioned “Songs of Love” for example; Hannon pokes fun at young couples prancing about in front of him with absolutely no regard for how miserable he is. Seen here in a more stripped down version and with a beautiful set of harmonic vocals playing blissfully over the harpsichord melody it's certainly one of the highlights of the album. But one thing that has thankfully been unwavering through the decades is my love of the music from the show. Walker might be gone, but the ways in which Hannon emulates him, captures his nuance and style, is like having someone putting out B-sides to Scott 1-4 across their own career. Taken from the same session 'A Woman Of The World' was also a contender for the show's theme tune but ultimately became the jaunty deep cut seen here, proving that Hannon is no stranger to recycling creative ideas across his career.

Performing as an eleven-piece ensemble, the band will play two albums from their catalogue in full each night. Casanova had the longest recording period of any Divine Comedy album up to that point and consequently had a higher budget. After spending quality time with the album, all 11 tracks here become songs of love to love, even if they are all actually about sex (or maybe especially because of that fact).The song was later covered by Ben Folds on his EP Sunny 16 in 2003 and Peter Bjorn and John as part of Under the Radar's Covers of Covers album in 2022.