Liberation

by

The Divine Comedy

Edit

Liberation is a 1993 album by The Divine Comedy, released on Setanta. It was the second album to be released by The Divine Comedy, although the band's leader, Neil Hannon, often refers to it as the first due to the stylistic differences of the earlier album, Fanfare for the Comic Muse. The album was recorded over the space of twelve days in March, 1993 by Hannon and Darren Allison. Hannon played most of the instruments on the album, while Allison was the recording engineer and drummer.

The album was released to much critical acclaim but little commercial success. It features harpsichord, violin, viola, cello, French horn, and a Hammond B3 organ. Several of the songs are inspired by (or refer to) works of literature: "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is based on the short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald; "Three Sisters" is about the play of the same name by Anton Chekhov; "Lucy" is an amalgam of three of the Lucy poems by William Wordsworth; "Timewatching" is inspired by the popular song "When I Fall In Love"; "Death of a Supernaturalist" is preceded by a quote from A Room with a View by E. M. Forster, spoken by Julian Sands and Daniel Day-Lewis and sampled from the Merchant-Ivory film of the same name. More playfully, "Festive Road" is a tribute to the children's television programme Mr Benn.