Tag Archives: blur

#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.

#1238: Blur – Some Glad Morning

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I was only talking about a Blur song the other day. How I came to know today’s Blur is very similar to the backstory behind ‘So You’ too. Blur’s discography was remastered in 2012. At least a majority of it. I went through all the Special Editions. Eventually came round to the expanded version of Think Tank, the band’s album from 2003. And that’s where ‘Some Glad Morning’ can be found. The song was recorded during the sessions for the LP, early on too before Graham Coxon left the band in acrimonious circumstances, but was left on the shelf until it got its own limited, fan-club exclusive release in 2005. By that point, the band was considered to be over and done while Damon Albarn was doing all his business with Gorillaz.

I think this goes down as one of those Blur songs where, if you look up the lyrics for them online, none of the sites that have them will be correct in any shape or form. It’s another Albarn-sung composition where the singer kinda merges his words together, delivering the vocal with a sort of tired, worn out drawl. Immediately catchy, though. The song has no chorus, revolving more around a ghostly refrain of ‘You’re behind me’ that repeats after nearly every line, but each verse that comes around follow the same melody. Once you’ve got it down, it’ll pop in your head from time to time. ‘Some Glad Morning’ isn’t really about anything. Again, I think it’s a case of Albarn messing around with words to go with the music and succeeding with very good results. Sometimes I wish he’d go back to that type of writing style. Not that I don’t like the Albarn-related music of recent years, but it’s the vague lyrics-aren’t-as-important style songs that always got me. Maybe ’cause of the mystery.

I appreciate the sort of loopy aspect of this song too. The track consists of little riffs and licks that you can tell were probably only played once or twice in a run-through and then copied and pasted wherever appropriate using some kind of software. Same applies with that “You’re behiiiind me” vocal. As it was recorded during a time when Albarn had the first Gorillaz album under his belt, you could guess that maybe he applied some recording techniques from the sessions with the project. There is a bit of a kooky Gorillaz feel about it. But the woozy bass lines and unique guitar chord choices could only ever tell you that it’s a Blur track through and through. I like Think Tank as an album myself, but it gets a lot of flak for not sounding like Blur enough due to the absence of Graham Coxon. A song like ‘Some Glad Morning’ gives a little insight into how things could have been had he stuck around.

#1234: Blur – So You

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In 2012, Blur released a massive boxset to celebrate their 21st anniversary as a band. In it, you would get (almost) all of their albums remastered. With each album came a bonus disc compiling B-sides and other additional material from the respective eras. ‘So You’ can be found on the “Special Edition” of 13, explaining why you see that album’s cover in the video up top. Originally it was released as a B-side to ‘No Distance Left to Run’ when that song was released as the album’s final single in November 1999. But I didn’t know of its existence until summer 2013 when I went through Blur’s discography on a whim. Heard it then, it’s been on the iPhone ever since.

What we’ve got going on here is a Blur track with a groove. Alternating between C minor and B major chords for the majority of the song, Graham Coxon lays an ascending/descending riff over the top, Dave Rowntree puts down a drum take that feels a little late on the beat with fills that sound like boxes falling down the stairs. All very tastefully done. The lyrics on show go into a category that Damon Albarn started to explore in this particular era of Blur. And that was to come up with lyrics that they don’t seem to mean anything and are more or less words made to match the feel of the music rather than tell a story or detail any personal feelings. A bit of a predecessor to what was to come with Gorillaz, I guess you could say. There are two verses of these “abstract” lyrics, followed by a melodica solo that echoes as each note plays, and the hypnotizing groove continues on until the energy fizzles out and we’re left with studio chatter to close the track out.

If you ever wanted to see Blur working on a song in the studio, you’re in luck. The making of ‘So You’ was captured in an edition of British arts TV series The South Bank Show in which the band were the main focus. The whole episode is worth watching if you’re a fan. But luckily someone on YouTube clipped out the parts showing the band rehearsing and recording ‘So You’, so I’ll just go ahead and embed that at the bottom there. So interesting to see the song’s transformation. What starts off as a discussion of chord progressions and initial showing of ideas swiftly goes on to be this fully formed thing where all the band members are locked in together. It probably happened over a longer period than the six minutes the video lasts for. But it’s still cool to witness.

#1060: Blur – Pressure on Julian

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I feel it’s fair to say that if ever anyone was to think of Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish album, its fourth track ‘Pressure on Julian’ wouldn’t be the first that would come to mind. That specific album comes at a weird space in Blur’s career. With it, they began to embark on the whole British music for British people aesthetic which would be their inspiration for their following two albums. But they also weren’t the massively popular band that they would become once that first following album arrived. Out of that ‘Life’ trilogy, as it’s become to be known as, Modern Life… has been my preferred record for the longest time, and while songs like ‘For Tomorrow’ or ‘Chemical World’ may be firm favourites among Blur fans, it’s the deeper cuts from there that have been right up my alley for up to 10 years now.

Actually, it was probably a re-listen to the album in about 2015 where a lot more of the songs clicked and I recognised the record’s strength as a whole. The one note that people may know about ‘Pressure on Julian’ is that the Julian in the title is a reference to Julian Cope, lead singer/songwriter for The Teardrop Explodes, who was also former bandmates with Blur’s manager at the time, Dave Balfe. The reference was only included because any lyrical/music reference (usually done intentionally by Damon Albarn) would drive Balfe insane. However, the song really has nothing to do with Cope, and if you were to have a read through of the song’s lyrics I couldn’t blame you if you were left clueless as to what Albarn was singing about here. I’m not even too sure myself. The ‘magical transit children’ phrase in the first verse was taken from some graffiti spotted during a photo shoot. But all in all, there’s not much coherency within those verses overall. Maybe the whole thing really was just a ploy to annoy their manager. With the “We planned it all this way” repetition in the choruses, it’s only come to me now that that is most likely what they were trying to achieve.

The song is led by this rolling drum pattern that I can only describe as sounding like a train pulling out of a station, joined by Alex James’s jumping bassline and Graham Coxon’s swirling guitar work. Albarn comes in on the vocal, harmonising with himself when the verses build in intensity with what sounds like the addition of more guitars in the mix, before falling into the short choruses that reach a climax with the elongated utterance of the song’s title. There’s also the notable instrumental middle part where the track’s tempo speeds up slightly bit by bit, increasing in tension before exploding into a finish with a climactic guitar chord and falling back into the train-type rhythm established at the song’s start. If only I were into my music theory or composition, maybe I could write this in a way that would make this much more informative to read. Hopefully, you’d be able to tell what I’m on about through listening to the song. And if not, you could at least watch Graham Coxon talking about the track himself. He did play on the track himself, when it comes down to it.

#1023: Blur – Peach

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This one’s a relatively new add to this long, long bunch. The track, alongside the rest of the Modern Life Is Rubbish 2012 special edition, has been in my iTunes library since 2013. But it wasn’t until a couple years ago that I properly paid attention to this particular number. I was snooping on the Blur subreddit and came across a thread which I think asked if any of the bandmembers had stated/mentioned their own personal favourite Blur songs. One response listed that guitarist Graham Coxon had once tweeted that ‘Peach’ was one of his along with a few others. Upon researching, I’ve found the tweet this was referencing. What better recommendation to give a song a shot than from the guitarist who actually played on it, right?

It hits immediately with the sharp tones of what I think of is a harmonium and a real woozy bassline, with a light acoustic guitar and percussion that certainly isn’t of the drum kit kind. So already it’s quite the oddity, but it’s intriguing from the get-go to say the least. The song’s lyrics are something I’ve haven’t quite grasped. As the songs seems to be fixating on this girl who seems kind of strange, sort of out there (“you’re always your way, you are”) but oddly attractive, I’ve come to think of it as a description of this lady being a bit of an airhead, or something of a free spirit. But I’ve also seen a few comments that really go for the dark side of things, judging by the line in the chorus where a ‘gaping hole’ in the head is mentioned and the “gun in your pocket” lyric. Supposedly, this narrator may have had their heart broken, commits suicide and literally shoots themselves, allowing the birds to feast on their brains. Two polar-opposite situations, here. Maybe this is a case that should be left unsolved.

The fact that it doesn’t sound adhere to the the usual rock band conventions is maybe a reason why it never made it onto the Modern Life… album in ’93, instead being released as a B-side on the ‘For Tomorrow’ single. Doesn’t much fit in with the British lifestyles theme that they had begun to delve into on there either. But hey, I’ve come to like it more than a few of the songs that did make the cut. It’s a mysterious dark horse of a track. Out of those three ‘Life trilogy’ albums, Modern Life… is my favourite. Covered a couple songs from it in the past. There are a few more still to come.