"Achilles", is the new single from The Divine Comedy, taken from the band's forthcoming album, Rainy Sunday Afternoon, Achilles is yet another example of Neil Hannon's peerless songwriting. Hannon explains the origins of the song: "I saw a man this
morning who did not wish to die". So begins the opening lines of Patrick
Shaw-Stewart’s 1915 poem, "Achilles in the Trench". I read a newspaper
article about it around the time of the various WW1 centenaries and was
very struck by it. The growing dread of the young classics scholar as he
waits to board a troop ship for Gallipoli. ‘Shells and hells for me’.
It made me feel tremendously grateful to have grown up in the postwar
oasis of calm. To have made it to my forty-third birthday, outliving
Shaw-Stewart by some fifteen years. I trust he wouldn't mind that I
pilfered a few of his lines. I hope it draws attention to his writing,
his sacrifice, and the sacrifice of his contemporaries. Especially in
these fraught times.” Achilles was written, arranged and produced by Neil Hannon. The
video was directed by his long-time collaborator, the French director
and photographer Raphaël Neal. It's the sixth video he's made with The
Divine Comedy. "The Achilles music video is probably my favourite work I’ve ever done for The Divine Comedy." Raphaël Neal explains "In
the past, our videos often had a narrative, but this time, there would
be no story, Neil visualising instead a tableaux-based studio video.
Some scenes, like the one where the WW1 soldier imagines himself as
Achilles, illustrate the song and the original poem by Patrick
Shaw-Stewart. Others take us somewhere else. Yet they all say something
about the themes of the song: getting older, reflecting on death and, at
the heart of this existential struggle, bravery."
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