“El Mañana” was the last single released from Gorillaz’s second album “Demon Days”. It was a double-A single released alongside the other song “Kids with Guns“, which I don’t have on my iPod because I don’t care for it that much.

I’ve always thought “Demon Days” was some sort of concept album detailing a story of the final days on Earth before the apocalypse. “El Mañana” coming from the perspective of a person who has actually witnessed ‘the end’ (in their mind, obviously) and has been reduced to a shivering mess because of it.

I first heard the song on the Yahoo Internet radio thing that I’ve mentioned in a lot of posts before. I thought it was alright. Didn’t really matter that much because I was just absorbing what I was listening to. I would go on to find out that it is probably the most emotional song on the whole album. But still, at that point, it was just a track. Three minutes and a half of Damon Albarn singing.

Then its official music video came out a few months later….. that’s when it really hit home. The dramatic music set up against helicopters shooting down Noodle’s peaceful windmill island out of the sky….. I know it is only a cartoon, but it is very difficult to contain the feels when watching that music video. Then all Gorillaz fans wondered if she had died, and if so what would happen to the group. All of this takes up about half of the page on the song’s Wikipedia article, so you can read about it all there.

Long story short: Noodle didn’t die. But listening to “El Mañana” takes me back when most Gorillaz fans thought “wh-what the fuck is happening?” Including myself.