The Tragic Story Behind “A Lady Of A Certain Age” by The Divine Comedy

There are certain songs you hear from an artist you don’t know beforehand that make you want to check out their stuff. And then there are the rare occasions when you hear something so good from someone previously unknown to you that you become an immediate fan. If you don’t know The Divine Comedy, check out the song “A Lady Of A Certain Age”. After your jaw hits the floor at the epic storytelling and stunning characterization, you might not need too much more convincing about the songwriting brilliance of Neil Hannon, the guy behind the band.

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A “Certain” Something

The Divine Comedy first popped up as a trio with the 1990 album Fanfare For The Comic Muse. It’s an album title that hints at the theatricality and erudition present in their music. That stems from the songwriting of Neil Hannon, their chief singer and songwriter from the start.

Four albums into their career, they began to make major headway in the United Kingdom with the breakthrough single “Something For The Weekend” in 1996. That song was the first of 13 Top 40 singles for The Divine Comedy in the UK. As the years progressed, band members came and went, but Hannon remained the stalwart.

Hannon essentially uses The Divine Comedy these days as his brand to release singer-songwriter material with a rotating cast of backing players. (As a sidelight, he recently wrote the songs for the film Wonka with Timothee Chalamet.) “A Lady Of A Certain Age” stems from the 2006 album Victory For The Comic Muse, the title hearkening back to their debut album. Hannon and company recorded it hurriedly in a two-week stretch, during which he was dealing with a cold.

You can sort of hear the stuffiness a bit in his vocals for “A Lady Of A Certain Age”. Hannon came up with the idea for the song while reading the diaries of Noel Coward, who reminisced about hanging out with the hoi polloi of England in the middle of the 20^th century. He also remembered a friend of his mother who shared some of the characteristics with the song’s heroine.

Examining the Lyrics of “A Lady Of A Certain Age”

The fact that “A Lady In The Certain Age” begins in the past tense clues us in early that the titular character might not be what she once was. “Back in the day you had been part of the smart set,” Hannon sings. Fancy locations, designer brands, and acclaimed celebrities whip through the retrospective scene, the woman at the center of it all. “Scaling the dizzy heights of high society,” Hannon explains. “Armed only with a cheque book and a family tree.”

The second verse starts to fill in the details of her life. She marries rich because she knows no other way to live. When children come into the picture, they’re mostly raised by a nanny up until a point. “And when the time came they were sent away,” Hannon says of the children’s destination in boarding schools. “Well that was simply what you did in those days.”

In the final verse, we discover the ultimate drawbacks of this lifestyle, especially for a woman. Her kids remain distant, both in location and spirit. She becomes a widow, but reaps none of the rewards: “He left the villa to his mistress in Marseilles.”

The refrains find her clinging to the vestiges and lifestyle of former days, since “the light of youth became obscured/And left you on your own and in the shade/An English lady of a certain age.” She lingers at bars, waiting for a younger man to engage her with a “conspiratorial wink.”

In a telling touch, the age she imagines herself to be in this conversation gets younger with each chorus. Thanks to Neil Hannon’s deft songwriting touch, we know that “A Lady Of A Certain Age” will keep regressing in her waking dreams, even as cold reality pushes her closer to poverty and inconsequentiality.

Photo by Xavi Torrent/Redferns for Cruilla