Achilles’, the new single from The Divine Comedy, now has a video every bit as beautiful and moving as the song it accompanies. One of many highlights 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.”
‘Rainy Sunday Afternoon’ is available to preorder now. Album formats include standard black and limited edition colour LPs, standard CD and a limited edition deluxe CD which includes the bonus disc ‘Live in Paris & London’
The Divine Comedy are on tour in the UK this October. The shows are selling fast with London and Manchester already sold out:
Mon 6th Oct Liverpool, Philharmonic Hall (LOW TICKETS)
Tue 7th Oct Nottingham, Royal Concert Hall
Wed 8th Oct Bath, Forum
Fri 10th Oct Gateshead, The Glasshouse
Sat 11th Oct London, Barbican (SOLD OUT)
Sun 12th Oct London, Barbican (SOLD OUT)
Mon 13th Oct Brighton, Dome (LOW TICKETS)
Wed15th Oct Cambridge, Corn Exchange (LOW TICKETS)
Thu 16th Oct Sheffield, City Hall
Fri 17th Oct Wolverhampton, Uni The Civic Hall
Mon 20th Oct Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall (LOW TICKETS)
Tue 21st Oct York, Barbican (LOW TICKETS)
Thu 23rd Oct Oxford, New Theatre
Fri 24th Oct Manchester, Bridgewater Hall (SOLD OUT)
Sat 25th Oct Bristol, Beacon (LOW TICKETS)
Dates in Europe, Belfast and Dublin will follow in early 2026.