Neil Hannon
I know this song by The Divine Comedy is not new but, playing it again today made me realise what a gem it is.
Neil Hannon’s crooning portrait of an ageing jet setter reduced to a relatively modest and lonely existence accepting drinks from some “nice young man” is a witty, compassionate and perfectly nuanced piece of writing.
My favourite lines are: “Your son’s in stocks and bonds and lives back in Surrey, Flies down once in a while and leaves in a hurry, Your daughter never finished her finishing school, Married a strange young man of whom you don’t approve”
The orchestral version on the 2006 album – Victory For The Comic Muse – is immaculate but the solo performance in the video below is also pretty damn fine.
This documentary film ,co-written and narrated by ex-editor of The Economist, 
