Tag Archives: blur album

#1246: Blur – Song 2

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Going into this, I was really thinking, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I just typed ‘Woo-hoo’ for the post and nothing else?” A little part of me still wants to as I type this. But I reckon it would be a bit of a cop out if I did. I would have been two years of age when Blur’s ‘Song 2’ up and around as the second single from the band’s self-titled album from 1997. And as a result, I think I really missed how inescapable the song was during its heyday. But even when I first saw the video/heard the song in 2005 or something, it sounded like a tune I must have heard a hundred times before. It’s Blur’s most well-known song, even by people who don’t know who the band is, and to this day if you were to see the band live, ‘Song 2’ is a guaranteed play because I don’t think they’re allowed to leave the stage without performing it.

The story that people tend to agree upon with the song is that it was written to parody American grunge music, with the whole soft verse/loud chorus with the lyrics that make no sense thing going on. The real story is Damon Albarn originally had the track demoed in a slower, acoustic arrangement with the “woo-hoos” originally being wolf-whistles. Something quite similar to this, actually. Graham Coxon heard it, suggested to mess it up and make it nastier. And so, Albarn laid the vocal track in the control room while Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree rocked out in the live space. The placeholder lyrics Albarn originally ended up as the final thing. He had actual lyrics he wanted to lay down, but they didn’t seem right. The guide vocal track which was meant to be recorded over stuck too. And made as a joke to freak out the label representatives, the joke fell flat because the people at the label ended up loving it and backed its potential as an actual single.

I must have heard this tune over a few hundred times now, surely. And you know, it’s a repetitive, sure. It’s got the “woohoo” thing going on. The lyrics are a bunch of nonsense. It’s over before you even realize. But I swear, every time the band comes in on that first “woohoo” with the riff and the double-tracked bass, it’s an automatic screwed face on my part. I just can’t help it. This a great song, just in terms of the feel of it all. Sometimes you do want to shout melodically about the most random of things, and ‘Song 2’ is the prime example that allows you to do that without thinking too much about it. Sometimes I think it’d be nice for a lot of other Blur songs to have at least half of the popularity ‘Song 2’ does. They’ve got some nice songs to their name. But then I think, if it’s gonna be one, why not ‘Song 2’? What it doesn’t have in substance, it makes up for in feel and attitude. And that’s all right with me.

#979: Blur – On Your Own

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Similarly to, I think, all of the singles Blur released up to their initial split in 2003, ‘On Your Own’ was a track I came across when its music video played on the TV. Large chance it was probably on MTV2. That channel had a knack for just randomly showing Blur music videos out of the blue for no particular reason. Not that it’s anything to complain about. I’ve known ‘On Your Own’ for so long now that I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I felt when I first heard/saw it. Would have been about 10 years old or around that age. But I can at least describe what about it has endeared it to me for all this time.

As the third single released from the band’s self-titled album in 1997, ‘On Your Own’ was unlike the crunching band-in-a-room performances of its two predecessors. This track included strange phasing synthesizers and a drum machine, comically performed by drummer Dave Rowntree in what is essentially a hole in the ground in the music video. On top of that steady rhythm comes Graham Coxon on the guitar, pulling off these jagged guitar lines and noises using his pedals which sound like those you hear when your video game freezes, but even more absurdly brutal in its tone. It’s like he’s trying to completely throw the song in the wrong direction, but ends up adding a whole other dimension to it. Then eventually comes Damon Albarn over the top, spouting these surreal lyrics that are provide some interesting imagery. The first verse may or may not be about ordering drugs while the second describes a bad trip/overwhelming reaction someone has to these drugs while on a night out. The chorus doesn’t make much sense at all, but the band sound like they’re having a great time when they’re belting it out. With all this though, the song still manages to pull off this existential bit, reminding us that in the end (death), we’ll all be alone – presumably in our coffins.

The quote most attributed to this track is Albarn’s who considered the track to be “one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes.” Now, I always took that quote to mean that it was an archetype for what would follow on the first Gorillaz album, rather than it being an actual track that he had with Gorillaz in mind but performing it with Blur instead. But I think a lot of people actually think that it was meant to be for Gorillaz just because of that quote. I don’t really see it myself. Albarn sounds too lucid on this track. The lyrics on here seem like they have no meaning to them, but they really do. Well, except for maybe part of the chorus. A lot of lyrics on that first Gorillaz album don’t make much sense at all. You really have to read those ones to try and get something. You want a proto-Gorillaz song? Check out ‘I’m Just a Killer for Your Love’.

#869: Blur – Movin’ On

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Think I read that Blur’s ‘Movin’ On’ was meant to be the final track on the band’s self-titled album from 1997. But then that changed when one day they made ‘Essex Dogs’ and decided that that track would take its place. ‘Movin’ On’ does have that “see you later, we’re out of here” sort of feel about it though. I just get that sense from its musicality, it’s hard to explain. What I do know is that it’s one of my favourites on this album, though I’m sure many wouldn’t bat an eyelid at it because there’s also ‘Beetlebum’, ‘Death of a Party’ and, you know, ‘Song 2’, among many other tracks that people may arguably find more substantial.

What got me hooked immediately to this one was its opening guitar riff, played by Graham Coxon, that goes back and forth with that fuzzy keyboard, presumably played by Damon Albarn. Those two are basically the melodic core of almost the entire track, then when the rhythm section of Alex James and Dave Rowntree join in, well, then it’s just plain sailing from there. The track is meant to be the band’s sort of declaration that they were done with the whole Britpop movement that they seemed to be a major force behind, and were going to continue to make simple indie rock, real band music. Of course, you wouldn’t assume this from the lyrics in the verses where Albarn is really just singing nonsense. Not like stupid things, but I feel they are words that are generally meant to fir the music rather than have a deep meaning behind them. Again, quite similar to what he would be doing with Gorillaz a few years later. Though there’s not much meaning, they’re delivered with a lot of feeling, and that’s all I ask for when it comes to this music stuff.

Some musical highlights in this to look out for… I mean I already mentioned the back and forth between the guitar and keyboard that happens throughout. I’d like to shout-out Dave Rowntree’s drum pattern during the choruses. I’m not a drummer, but there’s something emphatic about the way he switches between the hi-hats, tom-toms and crash cymbals alongside those rising ‘aah-aah’ backing vocals from Graham Coxon. Those sections are very uplifting. And then there are those moments where the band let loose. The keyboards freak out for the entire instrumental bridge, and the song’s end is just the four guys making as much noise as possible. I think it all just reflects the freedom the band must have had, particularly Coxon, now that they were changing their style up a bit. I give this track two thumbs up.

#764: Blur – Look Inside America

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Damon Albarn spent a good chunk of the 90s making music specially tailored to the British public. After having a not-so-great tour in the United States and seeing that the music from that country, especially grunge, dominated the UK charts he had a vision to remind people how great, and sometimes bad, it was to be from England with the ultimate aim of being part of the biggest band in their homeland. That vision came true to some degree, but the band found they had taken things too far with their 1995 album The Great Escape. They had also fallen hugely out of favour with the general British audience who had grown to prefer Oasis instead.

Their self-titled album that followed in 1997 was remarkably different, inspired by indie rock bands like Pavement and Sebadoh that guitarist Graham Coxon had been listening to. The music Blur was making in these sessions was a lot more aggresive and Albarn’s lyrics were more earnest and sincere. Noting the gratifying effect that this new American influence was having on the band, Albarn wrote ‘Look Inside America’ which is essentially an apology to the country and a song about learning not to care so much about things. In the track, Albarn sings about the better experiences he has while being in America. A good show was had the previous night, the band got an ad on the rock station KROQ, and he got a happier ending to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall by rewinding the videotape. He seems to have found pleasures in the smallest details and his lyrics, mixed with the uplifting music, result in what is probably the most optimistic track on the whole album.

Ironically, the song sounds the most similar to the material they were making on their Britpop trilogy. Only this time, the strings during the verses play more as a backdrop to Albarn’s vocal and Coxon’s guitar. The groove during the guitar solos nearing the end remind me to ‘Mr Robinson’s Quango’. I think it’s all in done in a tongue-in-cheek way though. Just a personal highlight for me is Alex James’ bass throughout the track, that’s very melodic in itself.

#596: Blur – I’m Just a Killer for Your Love

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‘I’m Just a Killer for Your Love’ is the tenth track on Blur’s self-titled album, released in 1997. For anyone who owns that album and holds it in particular high regard, it’s not hard to notice the slight quality difference in terms of production between this track and all the other 13 songs it’s placed alongside. It has an almost monoaural mix compared to the somewhat expansive sounds in ‘Beetlebum‘ or ‘Death of a Party‘, it sounds like the recording was accidentally started after Dave Rowntree starts drumming, there’s a Beatles ‘Yer Blues‘ feel to it in that it sounds like the band are just in this one room close together busting this thing out.

Well, there’s a reason for this. It’s the only song on there not to be produced by Stephen Street. Apparently, it was the very last track that the band worked on for the album and something the four members knocked out whilst working in Damon Albarn’s then new ‘Studio 13’. The track is very loose, rough around the edges, very slack in its execution but oddly seductive too.

This song predates Gorillaz’s first album by a few years but there are a number of things about it that remind me of what would appear on that project’s 2001 debut. The lyrics are a number of surreal images that when put together appear to make a coherent story, Albarn’s played up (or toned down, however you see it) vocal delivery is something he would go on to develop and play with more with the project, and just in general it’s almost experimental in its weird way.

Pay attention to Alex James really forcing that wah-wah effect on his bass, that’s some good stuff.