Valentine Boy

Let’s celebrate this day of love with Valentine-boy, Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy. Not your usual Adonis. “Frêle”, skinny, not very tall, he looks like these poets of frailty such as Rilke and Keats. But with the deepest, thoughtful and confident eyes, sweet, but somewhat mischievous as well, with an intelligent sort of charm and a very elegant wit, so much preferred to the big muscular type. This outer fragility combined with a bright and commanding mind has something very sexy about it. Fair, blondish, this Apollo of pop has an unexpectedly strong voice that easily translates the whole spectrum of all emotional colours of a rainbow, twisted with humour and erudition and flared by a soothing air of “everything is gonna be alright” . In the midst of a whole orchestra of eloquently articulate instruments, his aristocratic, courteous voice remains the undisputed bright star.

And he writes songs about love. Oh how he sings the first word “pale”, with a smile and a wink in his voice, a twinkle of irony, innocence and understanding, as someone who’s very knowledgeable in the matter. It all sets the tone for his musical storytelling so perfectly. He muses about the biology of love on the one hand, – as the David Attenborough of natural human behaviour – and the ideal of love as represented in books, songs and movies on the other, imagined in dreams and words and pictures. This song sounds like a swirl of butterflies in your stomach; the swiftly moving music gently dissolves all the drama of love and that’s how it should be. The lighthearted words and the frisky music are just made for each other, like a girl’s rosy cheeks for a blue boy. All love needs to be spoken, in those glorious declarations of love. They are some of the most magical moments of a life, even more so than their biological counterpart in my view. They are a part of all universal stories about love, of all songs about love. Sing your love freely and cheerfully like birds sing. Like all festive days, Valentine’s Day has a kind of mythical aura surrounding it. This day appears to be more about some mysterious myth, some ideal. Funny how we humans tend to believe in these unattainable ideals. Where on earth did we get them from?

So today I let my long copper brown hair fall down loosely over my shoulders like a little Venus, I put on my reading glasses and let myself be seduced by some divine poet’s lines. Love is a word of the gods…

Joke Roelandt, February 2019