The Lilac Time
★★★★
Looking For A Day In The Night
NEEDLE MYTHOLOGY. CD/DL/LP
The darkness before dawn for Brummie folk-baroque-er.
“One day you’re perfection then you’re just not good enough,” shrugs Stephen Duffy on I Won’t Die For You, the cold heart of The Lilac Time’s 1999 comeback LP. Having scored a big 1984 solo hit with Kiss Me, the Duran Duran co-founder picked up a cult following with the bucolic Lilac Time (formed with his brother Nick) then missed a second shot at the big time with a run of Britpop-era solo LPs that never quite found a mega audience. Unflustered, he reconvened The Lilac Time for Looking For A Day In The Night (now lovingly re-released in parallel with a contemporary live LP), and Robbie Williams was so enamoured of The Family Coach – a cuddly relative of Nick Drake’s From The Morning – that he covered it then brought in Duffy as his co-writer for 2005’s massive Intensive Care. “The best is always yet to come,” as Duffy puts it on that key song. “It’s that kind of game.” What prescience.