Here’s a pub quiz question guaranteed to baffle even the speediest of mobile phone Google cheats.
What have Sheffield, leather stage gear, cross dressing, the New Vaudeville Band, the Troubles and film director Neil Jordan got in common?
The answer, pop pickers, is The Crying Game. Written by Geoff Stephens, the song was first released by Dave Berry in July 1964 and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart.

The legendary late session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan played lead guitar on it and soon to be Led Zeppelin member Jimmy Page supported.

The song was then recorded by Brenda Lee in 1965 and was subsequently covered by the likes of The Associates, Chris Connor, Kylie Minogue, Percy Sledge, Barbara Dickson, Chris Spedding, Jimmy Scott and crooner Alex Moore.

But to a generation who maybe missed out on Berry’s original version it’s probably Boy George’s 1992 revival which is best remembered.

Both his and the original rendition were used as the themes to the 1992 Neil Jordan movie The Crying Game. Boy George’s version of the song was produced by the Pet Shop Boys and reached 22 on the UK Singles Chart, 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the USA and topped the charts in Canada the following year becoming his biggest solo hit across the Atlantic.

His version was also featured in the Jim Carrey comedy film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective as a joke reference to the Jordan film, with which it shared a plot point.

But it’s Berry’s original version which still stands out as a pop classic.

Born David Holgate Grundy, in February 1941, in Woodhouse, Sheffield he made his name performing a mix of familiar rock and r&b with untypical slower pop ballads which saw him a regular chart star in in Britain, and in Continental Europe – especially Belgium and the Netherlands – whilst pretty much missing out in the USA where he is best known for versions of Ray Davies’ This Strange Effect and Graham Gouldman’s I’m Going To Take You There.

Unusually in the era of Mop Tops and extrovert stage antics he preferred to appear on television completely hidden by a prop.
In his own words, to “not appear, to stay behind something and not come out”. He often hid behind the upturned collar of his leather jacket, or wrapped himself around, and effectively behind, the microphone lead. His stage presence was almost a slow motion performance.

His leather clad image drew on the early work of Elvis Presley and Gene Vincent and later provided an inspiration for Alvin Stardust.

Having borrowed his recording surname from rock/blues legend Chuck Berry he then had his first hit with that singer’s Memphis Tennessee – charting a month before the original in September 1963 and peaking at 19. Lesser hits My Baby Left Me and Baby It’s You slowed the tempo down in preparation for The Crying Game which like his two other biggest hits (a cover version of Bobby Goldsboro’s poppy American hit Little Things and BJ Thomas’s maudlin Mama) peaked at number 5.

This Strange Effect (UK number 37 in mid 1965), became a number one hit in the Netherlands and Belgium, countries where he still enjoys celebrity status.

It’s unlikely the modest performer ever anticipated the spotlight would shine again in 1992 with the cinema success of The Crying Game, a British thriller written and directed by Neil Jordan which explores themes of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

A critical and commercial success, The Crying Game won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, alongside Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Film Editing. In 1999, the British Film Institute named it the 26th greatest British film of all time.

Whilst Dave Berry’s chart days in the UK lasted just three years, The Crying Game’s composer Geoff Stephens’ successes spanned several decades and even included forming The New Vaudeville Band whose song Winchester Cathedral won him the 1966 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary (R&R) Recording.

His songs were often collaborations with other British songwriters including Tony Macaulay, John Carter, Roger Greenaway, Peter Callander, Barry Mason, Ken Howard, Alan Blaikley, Don Black, Mitch Murray, and Les Reed.

He began his career in amateur theatricals, when he wrote songs and sketches for musical revues presented by his own company, the Four Arts Society, while working as a school teacher, air traffic controller and silk screen printer. This led to BBC Radio accepting some of his satirical sketches for their Monday Night at Home programme.

Subsequently, becoming involved with music early in 1964 he had his first hit Tell Me When, co-written with Les Reed, a Top 10 hit for The Applejacks.

That year, in addition to his chart success with Berry he and Peter Eden discovered and managed Donovan, producing his first hit single and debut album, What’s Bin Did and What’s Bin Hid.

In 1966 he formed The New Vaudeville Band, writing and recording songs in a 1920s musical style. Their debut single Winchester Cathedral was a number 1 hit in the USA and number 4 in the UK Singles Chart and covered by others including Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Sinatra. It was followed by further hits for the band, Peek A Boo, Finchley Central and Green Street Green.

With John Carter, Stephens wrote Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James for Manfred Mann and, with Les Reed, There’s a Kind of Hush for The New Vaudeville Band. A year later, a cover version of the song was a hit for Herman’s Hermits, and it was also later a hit for The Carpenters. Over the next few years he wrote, or co-wrote, hits for The Hollies (Sorry Suzanne), Ken Dodd (Tears Won’t Wash Away These Heartaches), Cliff Richard (Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha), Tom Jones (Daughter of Darkness), Mary Hopkin (Knock, Knock Who’s There? – the 1970 UK entry in the Eurovision Song Contest), Scott Walker (Lights of Cincinnati), Dana (It’s Gonna Be a Cold Cold Christmas), The Drifters (Like Sister And Brother), Crystal Gayle (It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye), Hot Chocolate (I’ll Put You Together Again), Sue and Sunny and Carol Douglas (Doctor’s Orders) and, most successfully of all, UK number one hits for David Soul (Silver Lady) and The New Seekers (the Ivor Novello Award-winning, You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me).

In 1972, his joint composition with Peter Callander of Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast, was recorded by Wayne Newton. It sold over a million copies. In 1983, Stephens and Don Black composed the songs for the West End musical Dear Anyone, followed a year later by The Magic Castle with Les Reed. He has also been awarded the Gold Badge of Merit by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1995, and the Jimmy Kennedy Ivor Novello Award for Services to British Songwriting in 2000.

More recently he wrote To All My Loved Ones, featured as a centrepiece of the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall.
In 2005, Stephens worked with Peter Callander and David Cosgrove on the musical production of Bonnie & Clyde. Most recently Stephens has worked with Don Black on a planned stage revival of Dear Anyone.

There are one hit wonders who really only have one hit – and then there are one hit wonders who we really only remember for one hit even though they’ve had quite a few others which we don’t remember too much about.

Take Chumbawamba (generally pronounced “wumba” because they are/were from the North).

They reached 56 and 59 with Enough Is Enough and Timebomb in the 1993 singles charts and 10 and 21 with Amnesia and Top of the World (Ole, Ole, Ole) in 1998. But it’s their global chanter Tubthumping (a solid number 2 in 1997) which saved and probably broke them.

It took them a while to “get there.” The song was from their eighth studio album, Tubthumper (1997) and also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and hit number six on the US Billboard Hot 100 (although it topped the US Modern Rock and Mainstream Top 40 charts). At the 1998 Brit Awards, Tubthumping was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Single. As of April 2017, the song had sold 880,000 copies in the UK alone.

Chumbawamba had formed in Burnley 1982 and they ended in 2012. The band constantly shifted in musical style, drawing on genres such as punk rock, pop, and folk. Far more anarchist than pop puppets the Sex Pistols their “libertarian socialist” stances on issues including animal rights and pacifism (early in their career) and later regarding class struggle, feminism, gay liberation, pop culture, and anti-fascism was always going to leave them isolated.

They weren’t messing about – and accusations that they’d sold out cut deep. Tubthumping had humble beginnings. The legendary Leeds pub the Fforde Grene (now an apartment block) served as the group’s inspiration for writing the song (they’d lived in a squat in nearby Armley in Leeds). Guitarist Boff Whaley told the Guardian that it was written about “the resilience of ordinary people.”

In the late 1990s, the band turned down $1.5 million from Nike to use the song in a World Cup commercial. According to the band, the decision took approximately “30 seconds” to make. In 2002, General Motors paid them somewhere between $70,000 to $100,000, to use the song Pass It Along for a Pontiac Vibe television advertisement. Chumbawamba gave the money to anti-corporate activist groups Indymedia and CorpWatch who used the money to launch an information and environmental campaign against GM.

But as they had predicted in 1993 with Enough Is Enough and in July 2012, they announced they were splitting up after 30 years. On its website the members stated “That’s it then, it’s the end. With neither a whimper, a bang, or a reunion.”

No golden greats tour, no cabaret circuit. The band was joined by former members and collaborators for three final shows between 31 October and 3 November 2012, one of which was filmed at Leeds City Varieties and released as a live DVD. And that was it.

As for Tubthumping, it could have been written by Charles Baudelaire, who concluded in 1866: “It is essential to be drunk all the time. That’s all: there’s no other problem. If you do not want to feel the appalling weight of Time which breaks your shoulders and bends you to the ground, get drunk, and drunk again. What with? Wine, poetry, or being good, please yourself. But get drunk. And if now and then, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the glum loneliness of your room, you come to, your drunken state abated or dissolved, ask the wind, ask the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask all that runs away, all that groans, all that wheels, all that sings, all that speaks, what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, will tell you: ‘It is time to get drunk!’ If you do not want to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk, always get drunk! With wine, with poetry or with being good. As you please.”

Or as the Chumbas put it: “We’ll be singin’ when we’re winnin’ – we’ll be singin’” before getting to the nitty gritty of:
“I get knocked down, but I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
I get knocked down, but I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down”
Then finally one of the killer drinking verses of all time:

“Pissin’ the night away, pissin’ the night away
He drinks a Whiskey drink, he drinks a Vodka drink
He drinks a Lager drink, he drinks a Cider drink
He sings the songs that remind him of the good times
He sings the songs that remind him of the better times
Oh, Danny Boy, Danny Boy, Danny Boy.”
Like a lyrical Aunt Kelly Doll (or a drunkard’s pub monologue or an Irish rebel yell) it repeats its chorus/verses merging the two into a triumphant and seemingly endless chant:
“I get knocked down, (we’ll be singin’) but I get up again (pissin’ the night away)
You’re never gonna keep me down (when we’re winnin’)
I get knocked down, (we’ll be singin’) but I get up again (pissin’ the night away)
You’re never gonna keep me down (oh, oh)
I get knocked down, (we’ll be singin’) but I get up again (pissin’ the night away)
You’re never gonna keep me down (when we’re winnin’)
I get knocked down, (we’ll be singin’) but I get up again (pissin’ the night away)
You’re never gonna keep me down (oh, oh)
I get knocked down, (we’ll be singin’) but I get up again (pissin’ the night away)
You’re never gonna keep me down.”

Rather like what happened to The Strawbs’ 1973 near chart topper Part of the Union much of its meaning has been lost under decades of inebriated mob shouting and wobbly conga lines.

Vocalist Dunstan Bruce retrospectively observed that, before the group wrote it, they “were in a mess: we had become directionless and disparate”. He credited Tubthumping with changing that, telling the Guardian that “It’s not our most political or best song, but it brought us back together. The song is about us – as a class and as a band. The beauty of it was we had no idea how big it would be.”
It spent three consecutive weeks at number 2, held off the top spot by Will Smith’s Men In Black. The song spent a total of 11 consecutive weeks in the top 10, and 20 consecutive weeks on the top 100.

It was ranked as the year’s seventh most-popular single while it placed at number 3 on Australia’s top 100 songs of the year. The single also got in the top 20 of year-end charts in Sweden and Italy, and in the top 100 of 1997 in Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the USA the song placed at number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100’s year-end ranking for 1998.
Ironically it was also placed at number 12 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 20 Most Annoying Songs.

Despite fame and, some would say, fortune Chumbawamba gained additional notoriety over several controversial incidents, starting in August 1997 when vocalist and percussionist Alice Nutter was quoted in Melody Maker as saying, “Nothing can change the fact that we like it when cops get killed.”

The comment was met with outrage in Britain’s tabloid press and was condemned by the Police Federation of England and Wales. The band resisted pressure from EMI to issue an apology and Nutter only clarified her comment by stating, “If you’re working class they won’t protect you. When you hear about them, it’s in the context of them abusing people, y’know, miscarriages of justice. We don’t have a party when cops die, you know we don’t.”

In January 1998 Nutter appeared on the American political talk show Politically Incorrect and advised fans of their music who could not afford to buy their CDs to steal them from large chains such as HMV and Virgin, which prompted Virgin to remove the album from the shelves and start selling it from behind the counter.

A few weeks later, provoked by the Labour government’s refusal to support the Liverpool Dockworkers’ Strike, the band performed Tubthumping at the 1998 BRIT Awards with the lyric changed to include “New Labour sold out the dockers, just like they’ll sell out the rest of us”, and vocalist Danbert Nobacon later poured a jug of water over UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was in the audience.

In September 2011, past and present band members protested when the UK Independence Party used Tubthumping at their annual conference.

You wouldn’t have walked up to any member of The Beatles (except perhaps Ringo Starr) and said you’d always loved them since the “brilliant” Yellow Submarine any more than you’d have bought David Bowie a pint down at his local for being the bloke behind The Laughing Gnome.

So it’s probably with some chagrin that, despite a succession of superbly crafted hits, Ian Broudie and his “perfect pop studio project” the Lightning Seeds will forever be remembered (along with fellow culprits/composers and to some extent, comedians – David Baddiel and Frank Skinner) for the recurring football anthem Three Lions.

Still, with the royalties regularly rolling in – even when the England football team aren’t actually winning anything – it must mean that Broudie et al should be living the life of Riley which, strangely enough, was the title of the Seeds’ second hit, reaching number 28 a good four years before Three Lions made its first ascent to the top spot.

According the Free Dictionary if someone lives the life of Riley, they have “a very enjoyable life because they have plenty of money and no problems.”

It adds: “This expression often shows disapproval or envy and probably comes from a song Is That Mr Reilly, which was popular in America in the 1880’s and described what Reilly’s life would be like if he was rich.”

Broudie is a shade more subtle – he’s in the business of writing love songs after all, albeit rather left field ones. For starters, his Riley doesn’t make an appearance until line 17 – by which time we’ve been taken beyond the moon and back: “Lost in the Milky Way
Smile at the empty sky and wait for
The moment a million chances may all collide
I’ll be the guiding light
Swim to me through stars that shine down
And call to the sleeping world as they fall to Earth.”
All very deep but Riley still has to wait: “So here’s your life
We’ll find our way
We’re sailing blind
But it’s certain nothing’s certain

I don’t mind
I get the feeling
You’ll be fine
I still believe that
In this world
We’ve got to find the time” (And at last here it comes): “For the life of Riley.”
Then it’s back to that long day’s journey into night, or to be more correct: “From cradles to sleepless nights
You breathe in life forever
And stare at the world from deep under eiderdown

So here’s your life
We’ll find our way
We’re sailing blind
But it’s certain nothing’s certain”
Riley makes another cameo appearance another 14 lines into the lyrics before ending with a flourish of four name checks before the finish.

It’s not exactly the stuff of karaoke bar favourites is it? But like most of the Lightning Seeds hits it’s sweetly melodic and very catchy if you are prepared to wait – and Broudie’s vocals are instantly recognisable.

It was first released in 1992 with the album Sense and was classed as a minor hit reaching number 28. However the song later gained popularity when the BBC football programme, Match of the Day, began to use it for segments including Goal of the Month – as such the song is still frequently heard at football grounds and associated with the segment all these years later.
As for the title, Broudie cites his son Riley as the namesake of the piece – which seems strange given the rest of the lyrics. Still, if you’ve got a good title stick with it – so it was also used by the band for their greatest hits album, Life of Riley: The Lightning Seeds Collection.

A cover of the song by was used as the theme to the 2009 BBC television sitcom, Life of Riley. The trailers for the show used the original Lightning Seeds version.

The Lightning Seeds were formed in Liverpool in 1989 by Broudie (vocals, guitar, producer), formerly of the bands Big in Japan and Original Mirrors[. Originally a studio-based solo project for Broudie, the Lightning Seeds expanded into a touring band following the album Jollification in 1994.

The band’s name derives from a misheard lyric from Prince’s 1985 hit single Raspberry Beret “thunder drowns out what the lightning sees”.

Whatever happens in meantime expect them to be living the life of Riley again with Three Lions in 2022 – in time for the next World Cup.

The sun is out, there’s just enough breeze in the air to let your hair flow as you roll back the car sunroof and cruise just under the speed limit singing along to the Lighthouse Family’s 1995 (and 1996 re-issue) hit Ocean Drive.

Is that Monterey in the distance? And along the coast the San Francisco Bridge?

Well actually no. The radio playable hit by the easy sounding duo who notched up an enviable succession of hits between 1995 and 2002 is actually named after the drive from Roker Pier in Sunderland to Ocean Road in South Shields.

Sorry if that’s as disappointing as discovering Strawberry Fields aren’t really forever or the Yellow Brick Road has been pedestrianized – but to anyone not from Sunderland or South Shields it could still sound quite romantic.

This Ocean Drive (not the Duke Dumont song of the same name) was written and composed by keyboard-player Paul Tucker and sung by Tunde Baiyewu – aka the British duo Lighthouse Family for their debut album of the same name and was released as its second single.

Produced by Mike Peden, in October 1995 it reached the top 40 in the UK Singles Chart peaking at 36. It was later re-released, slightly remixed and with new vocals in May 1996 and this time reached number 11.

Their debut hit Lifted had a similar double life first peaking at 61 in 1995 then returning in February 1996 when it managed a number 4 spot.

Vocalist Baiyewu and keyboardist Paul Tucker formed the act in 1993 in Newcastle upon Tyne after meeting while studying at university and both working at the same bar. Their 1995 debut album Ocean Drive eventually sold more than 1.8 million copies in the UK alone and established them as a popular easy listening duo throughout Europe.

Familiarity bred content because their songs Lifted, Lost In Space, Ocean Drive, Raincloud and High all have a similar sound.
With their last singles chart entry, Happy, stalling at 51 in July 2002, Lighthouse Family scaled down their appearances in early 2003 because of what they called a “heavy promotional schedule” which led to both men pursuing individual projects.
In November 2010, the duo announced they were reforming Lighthouse Family and did a full UK and Ireland tour, in February and March 2011. It was the first performance of Lighthouse Family in eight years.

The duo had planned to release a new album called Blue Sky in Your Head on 3 May 2019, introduced by the single, My Salvation, on March 21. However, the album release has now been delayed until the 5 July 2019. It will be the duo’s first album in 18 years.
They have now also announced a multi-date UK tour commencing in November 2019.

As for Ocean Drive, lyrically it’s a little darker than its feelgood rhythm sounds. It might start out as: “Say it’s true, pink and blue
I can share your situation
Keeping hold on our emotions,
They will only make us cry
And you go, I know, but you know
It ain’t so serious anyway
When the clouds arrive we’ll live on Ocean Drive.”

The singer may reassuringly suggest: “Don’t know why you’re so blue,
The sun’s gonna shine on everything you do
And the sky is so blue
Sun’s gonna shine on everything you do.”

Then again: “He left you black and blue
Without a word of explanation
And he took your love for granted and
He left you high and dry.”
Not to worry (easy for him to say!), after all: “But you know someday,
Well you’ll wonder what you see in him anyway
When that day arrives we’ll live on Ocean Drive.”

Cheer up (hah!): “Don’t know why you’re so blue
Sun’s gonna shine on everything you do
and the sky is so blue
The sun’s gonna shine on everything you do.”

The pair had been nothing if not patient. After meeting via barwork, Baiyewu and Tucker recorded demos of a number of songs Tucker had written during the late 1980s and among them a demo of Ocean Drive attracted the attention of Polydor Records A&R director Colin Barlow, who, in 1993, signed the band to a six-month development deal. In the wake of an economic recession British record labels were primarily signing artists with the goal of short-term profit. In contrast, Barlow said he expected that the duo could last for “ten years or more”. At the time of the launch of the first album, Polydor’s investments in them totalled ₤250,000. Peden’s hiring as producer was described as a “big spend”, and music videos were filmed overseas in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

The lead single, Lifted, received airplay on BBC Radio One as well as a number of BBC Local Radio stations, and The Chart Show aired its music video. But it didn’t translate to much single or album sales until it was re-released in 1996 and reached the top five with the album Ocean Drive (which had been deleted) rebounding to six-times platinum by the end of 1997, spending 154 weeks on the UK album chart in the process. Its follow-up Postcards from Heaven achieved similar sales status in 1997.

The American Songbook has The Chatanooga Choo Choo and its opening lines of:
“Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?
Track twenty nine, boy you can gimme a shine,
I can afford to board a Chattanooga Choo Choo.
I’ve got my fare and just a trifle to spare.”

The British Songbook’s National Express by The Divine Comedy sings about travel of a different kind and advises:
“Take the National Express when your life’s in a mess,
It’ll make you smile.
All human life is here,
From the feeble old dear to the screaming child,
From the student who knows that to have one of those would be suicide,
To the family man manhandling the pram with paternal pride.
And everybody sings “ba ba ba da…”
We’re going where the air is free.”

In America it’s a travelogue of a journey with good companions, decent food and a good degree of comfort:
“You leave the Pennsylvania station ’bout a quarter to four,
Read a magazine and then you’re in Baltimore.
Dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham ‘n’ eggs in Carolina.
When you hear the whistle blowin’ eight to the bar
Then you know that Tennessee is not very far.
Shovel all the coal in, gotta keep it rollin’
Woo, woo, Chattanooga, there you are.”

In Britain it’s travel of a very different kind. You pay your money and you take your chances for what comes with that:
“On the National Express, there’s a jolly hostess selling crisps and tea.
She’ll provide you with drinks and theatrical winks
For a sky-high fee.
Mini-skirts were in style when she danced down the aisle
Back in ’63 (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
But it’s hard to get by when your arse is the size
Of a small country.
And everybody sings “ba ba ba da…”
We’re going where the air is free.”

So what’s going on?
National Express is a song by The Divine Comedy. It was released as the third single from the album Fin de Siècle and reached number eight on the UK Singles Chart in early 1999 and number 18 in Ireland.

The song is based on The Divine Comedy’s founder and only constant “member” Neil Hannon’s observations of life from the window of a National Express coach as he commuted up and down the country.

For reasons not apparent in the official video for the song, directed by Matthew Kirkby, it examines with some irony the UK National Health Service from the viewpoint of a patient (portrayed by Hannon) who is being referred to a psychiatric hospital. Throughout the video the patient is shown being pushed in a wheelchair by a porter who has trouble controlling his behaviour and takes him for electroconvulsive therapy.

The video ends with the patient, unconscious from his treatment, starting to wake up while the porter pushes him back to his ward.
Wikipedia describes The Divine Comedy as “a chamber pop band from Northern Ireland formed in 1989 and fronted by Neil Hannon.”
But in most respects it’s more a case of The Divine Comedy being Hannon and a succession of mates/musicians rather than a band in the traditional sense of the word.

Hannon has been the only constant member, playing, in some instances, all of the non-orchestral instrumentation except drums. To date, eleven studio albums have been released under the Divine Comedy name, “they” achieved “their” greatest commercial success in the years 1996–99, during which “they” had nine singles that made the UK Top 40, including “their” biggest hit, National Express.
He has rarely taken the traditional approach to pop songwriting.

Other compositions include a plethora of literary references: Bernice Bobs Her Hair recalls a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Three Sisters draws upon the Anton Chekhov play and Lucy is essentially three William Wordsworth poems abridged to music. Other intriguing titles have included Something for the Weekend (number 14 in 1996), Becoming More Like Alfie (number 27 also in 1996), and The Pop Singer’s Fear of the Pollen Count (number 17 in 1999).

Other claims to fame include writing and performing, with Darren Allison, the theme music for the sitcom Father Ted (which would subsequently be incorporated into Songs of Love on the album Casanova), and later writing the music for the mock-Eurovision song My Lovely Horse for one episode.

Hannon resisted widespread requests from fans to release the track as a single for the Christmas market, but it was eventually released in 1999 as the third track on the CD-single Gin Soaked Boy. His composition In Pursuit of Happiness was used by the BBC science and technology show Tomorrow’s World and Hannon also composed the music for the comedy series The IT Crowd, written by Father Ted co-writer Graham Linehan. Hannon also provided vocals for songs on the soundtrack for the film of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy released in 2005, working with Joby Talbot, the composer for the film and former Divine Comedy band member.

This sci-fi connection continued in late 2006, when he contributed vocals to two tracks – Song For Ten and Love Don’t Roam – on the Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack album.

In an interview with Bullz-Eye.com, Hannon explained that, “literally, I was asked to add my vocal by the composer of the songs, who writes for the show. And I didn’t feel that I could say no, simply because I spent my childhood watching this programme. It would be just plain wrong to not do it.”