The night was billed as Neil Hannon – on songwriting, so I wasn’t sure if we were going to get something that would be suited to the more musically astute amongst us, but thankfully I was able to follow the proceedings!  Neil Hannon was joined on stage by the great John Kelly. It mostly took the form of a general discussion on the music that affected Neil throughout his life, with John Kelly demanding songs and impromptu cover versions along the way, the most notable of these covers were ‘Don’t you want me baby’ (Human League), ‘Gigantic’ (Pixies), ‘Wild West Hero’ (E.L.O – he seems to be a huge ELO fan actually, and wasn’t even ashamed of it!), and ‘I wanna walk like you’ (the Jungle book – the first album that he was obsessed by).

Neil also dismantled Gigantic, and showed what the chord progression should have sounded like, if it were written without using only major chords, which instantly transformed it into a lounge song! Amazing stuff.

On the discussion of ‘my lovely horse’ he admitted being ‘heavily influenced’ by the drum track from the 1965 Luxembourg eurovision entry Poupee De Circe, Poupee de son for two of his songs, ‘Tonight we fly’ and ‘Something for the weekend’. Can you notice the similarities?

Neil Hannon – on Songwriting – Liberty Hall on Friday 4th of June.