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Due for release on 10th March 1997, 'Everybody Knows' finds mainman Neil Hannon in real romantic mood this time around... It is tipped to give them their biggest hit to date.In the end, it didn't quite make it - this matched the peak of breakthrough hit 'Something For The Weekend' but spent one less week in the Top 75. Perhaps I should take the blame as I bought none of the three CD single formats available: it seemed unnecessary when I'd got the album for my birthday two days earlier: it seems to have been a matter of policy for the Divine Comedy to release albums before singles. Apparently you were supposed to buy all three (card-sleeved) CD singles and fit them into the large box around the album CD, but I didn't realise that at the time, and probably wouldn't have bothered anyway.
I did like the song though. Like most people, I'd only become aware of Neil Hannon and his work the previous year, although I had read a review about him in the NME before Chris Evans started playing him so I'm almost cool. Anyway, this seemed like a refinement of the template of his previous album, aided by the fact that he could now afford to record the whole orchestra at the same time: the album was officially recorded at soundchecks at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, although probably with a little touching-up in a studio afterwards. It lends the production a certain lightness of touch that prevents Hannon's ironic lyric from being too irritating. Mind you, even at the most jokey (his dramatic delivery of the line "I made a small boy cry") there's always some sort of sense that the desperation is real - within the scope of the performance, at least, not necessarily in Hannon's own personal life - that saves this from sounding like a joke at the listener's expense.
Also appearing on: Now 42
Available on: A Secret History? The Best Of The Divine Comedy
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