Readers from the UK, it is that song from the British Gas adverts. There will be people out there who would have been introduced to Blur’s ‘The Universal’ through its use on the company’s advertising campaign in the early-2010s. I wasn’t one of them. It was those instances where I’d catch its music video on the TV somewhere, about ’05/’06 time. When it came to ‘The Universal’, I found myself changing the channel, the song’s video would be playing, but it would almost be at its end. It seemed to be a pattern that I’d never catch the beginning of it. YouTube was just in its early stages of being a working company, I didn’t know about its existence. But I did watch the video online on a site that I can’t remember and is probably irrelevant now. It wasn’t like I was missing out on much. The opening just shows a microphone, its cord being pulled and a long pull-out shot of the band as they mean-mug the camera. All an imitation of A Clockwork Orange, if you didn’t know already.

I mean, it’s ‘The Universal’, innit? I think even fans who don’t regard The Great Escape as one of Blur’s finest moments – again, I’m not one of them – can still put their hands up and admit that the track’s one of the band’s best. You ever see the group play it live, it brings the people together. It’s that “really, really, really could happen” refrain, just grabs you. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to pin down what the track is about. It seems to be about everyone and everything. When I say “everyone”, I mean the people of Britain. That was Damon Albarn’s whole thing for a while back then. It’s about being under surveillance, it’s about nights out at the karaoke bar. I think the “Tomorrow’s your lucky day” and “Really, really could happen” stuff refers to the National Lottery, which was a relatively new thing in 1995. It’s a subject “discussed” in fellow album track ‘It Could Be You’ too. The track has a sort of ‘The Future Is Now’ theme going on, heightened by the musicality with the horns and choir sections, but undercut by the mundanity of society as observed by Albarn.

Once I found the video online and heard the whole song in full, it was pretty much a given that ‘The Universal’ was gonna be a tune I’d return to for years. By 2006, or whenever it was, that had already been the case for millions of other people. But it goes to show how strongly the song held up even 11 years from its initial release. Let’s take away Albarn’s vocal, which he provides so effortlessly across the board, from the coolness in the verses to the rousing delivery in the choruses. Graham Coxon provides two guitar parts, the stabs in the left ear and the pretty, fluttering pattern in the right. Alex James alternates between ‘silky’ and ‘busy’ in terms for settings for his bass guitar work. And I’ve got no complaints about Dave Rowntree’s drums, he gets the job done. It’s a tight band performance. But the strings, the horns, the “Just let them go”s from the harmonizing lady vocalists. Those are what takes the song to another level. Imagine the song’s triumphant almost-instrumental last-minute ending without those three components. The section would end up sounding very empty. But the mix of the band and the outside performers altogether, that’s what gets the people tearing up at their shows. It’s right in the center of The Great Escape. I have no problems with ‘Yuko & Hiro’ as the whole closer. But I’ve seen a complaint saying ‘The Universal’ should have been, and I see it. It at least closes out the first half.