SONGWRITING

The world’s greatest songs. By the people who made them.

THIS WEEK: A Top 10 single 20 years ago, National Express is still The Divine Comedy’s biggest hit. As they head out on a UK tour, tells Music Week the story behind the budget travel anthem... Q INTERVIEW: ANDRE PAINE – the brass is absolutely pivotal to the had a French girlfriend at the vibe and I think it’s half the reason time and I was taking her to see it was a massive hit. Jon Jacobs, who my brother’s family down in produced the , did a sterling job Devon. Having no money, we took on that song. It just sounds wonderful Ithe National Express. I wrote songs even with me being a bit mad all over about anything really, and because I was the top of it. with her and she was from a different We recorded most of it at Cocteau country, I was seeing it all very clearly Twins’ September Sound [also known as for what it was. Eel Pie Studios]. But I do remember we I’m sure I noted something down on did the brass in a completely different the journey, because I kept a notebook studio in Camberwell. Keith Cullen “It’s one of my with me wherever I went. I finished [Setanta Records founder] was annoyed the lyrics at a later date. I wrote it in a with having to spend all that money in most successful house in Morden at the very far end of September Sound, so we ended up in recordings, I’m the Northern Line – one of my many this little place in Camberwell. We did South London bedsits at the time. I can the timpani there as well, because the not sure it’s one still remember the bay window that I timpani are a big deal on that song. I of my best songs” had my keyboards in writing National remember doing all of the ba-ba-ba-das Express and Songs Of Love. in that live room in Camberwell. I did It wasn’t a positive or negative song, ba-ba-ba-das in 30 different tones of NEIL HANNON it’s just a say-what-you-see kind of song. voice in different parts of the room to THE DIVINE COMEDY I actually wrote it two years before it try and create a gang feel. got on a record. I was writing it towards It’s funny, it’s one of my most the end of the Casanova period, but I successful recordings, I’m totally didn’t think it was ready. Then it wasn’t going to say that. I’m not sure it’s one right for A Short Album About Love, of my best songs, because that’s a either, because it wasn’t about love. So different question. But as far as actually it got carried on until Fin De Siècle, recording the song to its best potential, and I’m glad because it meant I had I think National Express hits the nail on somewhere to go. I had a big hit in my the head. But it’s all a bit like a distant pocket. I always thought it was a hit, it dream. The songs you do the best you just had that vibe. don’t think about too much. It’s an odd one, Fin De Siècle. I listen One chap from the NME [Steven to that record now and I sound kind Wells] took against it, saying it was of mental. It jerks around crazily from patronising to working-class people. I one thing to another. Life On Earth was thought, ‘No, it’s not’. Perhaps I could a bit chanson, Eric The Gardener was have given it a bit more thought, I kind of minimalist/prog and Generation was only 26! But it certainly wasn’t Sex was an early ’60s Adam Faith somehow anti the common man or kind of vibe. It’s all over the shop. So making fun of the people – anything but. National Express doesn’t stick out, A lot of my work is to do with trying to Comedy central: because the rest of it is so weird as well. see the heroism in everyday life. Life is Neil Hannon’s latest National Express is so centered a difficult thing to negotiate and people Divine Comedy album around the shuffly drums and the brass do it extraordinarily well, really. Office Politics is out now

68 | Music Week 07.10.19 musicweek.com