Publishing Splits and Final Thoughts

Oh yeah, it's right man Wome! Puran is forota Wom! And underallaida Wolong. We're talking about him in Albn all of his time as the Fen of peracorillas. We will teach y'all D on Lxur Today, we're diving into a song that turned two minutes, a scream and a wall of distortion into one of the most recognizable rock records of the nineteen nineties, a song that somehow became Blur's biggest doorway into America, even though it was never really supposed to be the full picture of who Blur was. That's right, Yalla. And we could not talk about this song without talking about where it lands in Damon Albarn's career So today's episode is part one of a two part story where we start with Blur and a pivotal moment in Damon Alburnn's career before following him into the world of gorillas. Today we're talking David Alburn, Blur, and the accidental anthem that became one of the defining rock singles of the decade. This is one song, and today that song is song two by Blur Jay This summer, serve up the cookout cllassics, craft Mayo and dressing. Tss green salads with delicious ranch dressing, or zesty Italian. Serve smooth, craably creamy potato salads with mayo. We all know it's not a cookout without craft This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom sccrolling? Smart move. Another smart move Getting help from one of State Farm's nineteen thousand local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state Not much energy. I'm so pumped for today. Yeah One of my favorite bands of all time. I will say, right at the very top. Look, it needs to be said. We've done one hundred and thirty episodes of this show. Diallo has really held back on literally your favorite band. R? So much restraint. So much restraint. But we finally got there. This is the Daamon Allbarurn episode. we've been waiting to make from day one, so we can't wait to launch into the Damon and the blur of it all with you guys I'm actor writer director and sometimes DJ Diola Riddle And I'm producer DJ and songwriter and musicologist Luxury. AKA the guy who whispers ent And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres to tell you why they deserve one more deeper listen You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before, and you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify While you're there, please like and subscribe All right, let's get started Dallo. when did you first hear Blur? F story. I was actually Bir you know, my writing partner We were getting kicked out of Amagi's, which was a bar restaurant on Sunset Boulevard. What'd you do We were just having too much fun, man. You know, like at one point the songs got ridiculously good and I think that we might have hopped up onto the bar and thought we could dance with the girls and the establishment didn't want that kind of entertainment. I see. I see. So they wasn't coyote ugly. No Okay So they actually tossed us out, but the fun fact is we were getting tossed out. We just graduated from Harvard not that long ago. We were just getting kicked out. and one of our friends was just like, o Oh man, what a great night. Did't you love them when they played that song by Blurred. And I was like, Which song was that? was like It was the one with the lyrics don't make any sense. I can see his face to this day. He was just like, it's the one where he says, I got my head checked by a jumbojet. And I was like and the lyric made me laugh. I was like, Yeahah, that's wonderful does not make any sense. And so I went out and I sought that song. I might have bought the single Maybe about the album, but eith way, I went out and I was like Holy shit, I like all these songs. And so then, you know, as one would do back then I went back and I bought all their albums and some of my life more than others. That was your doorway into the band. That was my doorway into the band was just one crazy night sensive strip. That song was played. Yeah. Can we just point out that it's to me unusual that he would have referred alluded to the song not by the part where it goes woo hoo. That would seem to be the easier way to like refer to something that you didn't know what it was when it was happening He went straight for the Jumbojet though. He thought Jumbojet was so funny and I thought it was funny too. and Ber and I were just like, Yeahah, that seems like a really cool band, you know, because like they just seemed cool at the time. this band blurred. But it's one of those things where like it accomplished the mission it was supposed to accomplish, which was it got it caught my ear And then all of a sudden I'm deep diving through all their stuff And I might have heard There's No Other wayay, which is another great blur song. I might have heard that maybe on rock radio back in Atlanta back when it first came out. And to this day is There's No other wayay. It's still one of my favorite songs by them. Soy. That song is so great, but it's so interesting to hear it now contrasting with song. They're very different songs.'s almost like very different bands. like different band. I like that's more of a Madchester kind of late eighties, early nineties thing. You can imagine Liam Gallagher coming in on There's No O wayay with the way or she so high in particular, Right? You know Or may I say Soup dragons because my friend Sean from that band was mad at me Last time when I mentioned the Souit Dragons in passing, Sean, love your band. love Hi byi Sean And Sper Dragon's Great band, it could have been a Super Dragon song. I think that's more of a reasonable connection there. And I'm also trying to make nice. Don't hate me, Sean Given the very different paths that Oasis and Blur went down, can I just say I am a fan of both It's the same way I like Tupac and Biggie. You know what I mean? Like I loved Bur. I loved Oasis at the same time. but ban the recorded She's so high could have easily gone to the oasis. In fact, it sounds like a song that you can imagine Liam coming in singing over. Yeah. But by the time even as early as like the Park life album, which I think is one of the best albums of the nineties. Yeah Blur has staked out a distinctly quirky, nerdy sort of like British sound. It's it's a very quirky It's a very quirky time, I think in the UK. like the whole Bit pop movement is sort of a celebration of the UK And I feel like Blur attacks it from a very different point than their Mancunian rival counterparts That's a perfect opportunity. We do have to talk about two things, both Bit pop, the musical movement, the genre, created by NMe and Mlody Maker and sounds, but also a real phenomenon where there are a bunch of bands Elastica would be one maybe Super Gass. If you've ever heardade Hulps commommon Hope one hundred percent. What a great song, What a great album that that one comes off of I just feelt like that was when they were really like establishing a sound distinct from the new wave of the eighties, evenven the jangly guitars that we would call Madchester. Yeah. But it was harkening back to kind of sixties Britannica. like kind of a love for that Lond was liive. Waterloo sunset era Kinks and the Beetles and the Stones and the who There was just sort of a resurgence of love and admiration for those bands. And specifically London because I think this is the London of David Beckham. This is the London ironically of an America movie, Austin Powers, right that celebrates this period. Right. They got to kind of right. Yeah. The Beatles are releasing their anthology. And then you've got one band, you know, Oasis that sounds very beatly in one way But I would argue that Damon, without sounding beatly, also sounds like you said, like a band that could have existed, sort of a modernization of that sixties London. And it's interesting to make the parallel too because as much as Oasis very much stays within the lane, I would argue, like they're a Beatles loving band. And every now and then they're kind of a stonesy loving band and there's a little T Rex that gets thrown in now and that a little Gary glitter For the most part, they stay in that lane throughout their whole career. Well they've always the first track on this the track before song two on this album is called Beetlebum for a purpose. Oh yeah. you know, I never kn that Beetleum is great.'s listen a little bit of Beetleum She lets me po. It's funny because you hear the Beatles, but it's also not the Beatles. L There's also not no,'ss new singing in celebration of the Beatles, but it doesn't sound like,y, I'm gonna do what the Beatles have done. just real quick, he said it right and I'm just gonna stand for the record. This is one of those groups I know almost their entire catalogue to the extent which this episode when Inevitably go back and listen to it will disappoint me. becauseuse I'll be like, whyy didn't I bring up s? I know that feeling. Which was that song on the trainpotting soundtrack, which was incredible, but was originally recorded as the song Sing to Me by their previous group. Before they were Blurred, they were called Semour, named after the J D Challenge. Are gonna be crumbs that you leave on the table. It's part of the tragedy.'t toave part of the agony of doing this. I't put any crumbs. It's only an hour long and it's only one song but it's still We under I understand you perfectly, man. Listen, real quick. Listen to a little bit of sing from the trainpotting soundtrack we've had a have we talked about this on an episode that this soundtrack we both maybe love? As our favorite contrs all whole time. I we share this? I think we were guests on a podcast. I think that's. We'll do a special one off call one album or one sract. Yeah we go. And we'll talk about it. But that was sing. Here's the original nineteen eighty nine version back when they were called Seymour, once again named after a JD Salinger book, Nerds, cheheck this out ian almost sound like out of tone. Yeah out of tone. He's thrown a couple of notes in there that are not in the chord, but like, you know, they're spicy notes, but it sounds cool and messy, whichich by the way, is a connection to both of the songs both of the episodes we're talking about today. We're What a great reminder too of where they were coming from because that's such an era, that sound and that the Bit pop thing, we we're done with that In song two, that's not there anymore. And this song is kind of an eraser. Pong two in some ways is there's a song on this blur album called Death of the Party Yeah. And I do feel like to a certain extent, in a very short period of time, Lenon might have partied itself out in the rock bands of the Bp hop era. That's' sort of seeing themselves replaced by more of the poppy spice girls. Just to put dates on this chronology. So if in nineteen ninety four it starts to be used Technically, I've read that in nineteen ninety two, Damon himself thinks that Blur began to use the word Brit pop. By ninety four, it's definitely in the common parlance. And that means that the British papers are using it constantly to sell copies of FME Mlody maker and sounds nineteen ninety five is the famous blur versus Oasis showdown Absolutely. Right whereere they both come out with their singles at the same time. It's a rivalry. I think Oasis is thought to have won that particular rivalry because in terms of sales In terms of sales and the fact that they were able to break into the American market, which ye no, I mean like go You know, America never celebrated Suadee or Pulp or any of these bands Swede got got lumped into that whole like Sede UK thing that some bands they come over the Charlatan Right. They have to absolute at the end wham UK or whamK. I't about wh. There was a wham UK thing too. So that means there was a U.S It was a wham already. Yeah know that there was a wham US. Listen Swuadee are great though. Or I think they might even call the UK Suadee even worse.o. That's what they That was a great band Something to sticick in your pocket for now. Yeah. I don't know why I sed like that So let put it in your back pocket for now. Remember, I said that they did sing to me and it was kind of faster and peppy. byy the time we get to ninety six, they slow it way down the heroin is in this from transinpotting sing is much slower. Remember that because temples are going to play a role in the conjuring, if you will of song two That's absolutely right. Just to finish the chronology by nineteen ninety seven, when this song comes out, we we're post Bp pop. It's all over At this point, you know, for all of us, I was just discovering it. No you he a sense Yeah I was coming in on the party late and that people were leaving. Oasis' beat here now is considered kind of a flop at this moment. There was a sense that the party was over to your point of the song on this record. You know, we've got the Verve bittersweet Symphony is coming out in this same year. They're going to play a part in the Damon Albarn story. We've got radio headad Okay, computer and Cldpl. there's sort of a new rising post Bit pop sound that's coming out at this point Absolutely. I don't mean to takeick up all the blur air. I want to ask you, how did you first hear Song two? Well, this is an MTV story. You know, I grew up watching one hundred twenty minutes every Sunday night and then the young ones. That was Rock Yeah curated for the curious one hundred percent And this is where I first was exposed to or one of the ways because I was also listening to live one hundred and five in the Bay area, but like, The Smiths, the Cured, the D Pestchme, all of these English bands really mattered to me because first of all, the music was great, but they also felt like an alternative and better source than just what the kids at my school were listening to an American radio. There was a sort of vibe that these were the things to listen to that were cooler, frankly, I don't have a better word than that. It felt cooler It felt a little more mysterious. And of course, genuinely, I loved the music itself. So this is a few years after that. This is the next generation into the nineties, But all of the bands we've been talking about, I wasn't getting from topop forty radio in America. I'm getting them from I am reading these magazines. reading. I'm reading an MME. I am watching whatever the remnants of one twenty mininutes was. So there was this idea that they were cool and I needed to pay attention to what this What this battle was, you know, between Bur and Oasis, for example. And what's wild is this is the same self titled blur album that not only gives you song to But it also has a song that I'd never thought I'd have a chance to talk about, On Your Own. One of my favorite songs that's been described by Damon himself as one of the early gorilla song. Let's check out a little bit of onnour O. She say you're wrong, you're wrong All right. It's so laddish. It sounds like a drunken pub sing along. Y a pub s whoose lyrics are totally garbled by the drunkenness of the singers. It' be the same. Right. In other words should be drunk It all be dead. Okay till then you're on your own. That was not the lyric you were pointing out to me? No, the line that I thought was interesting because I didn't know that until we started researching this episode Okay when he said that he considers this an early gerorilla song the ch starts. So take me home, donon't leave me alone. I'm not that good, but I'm not that bad. No psycho killer. Hooligan Gorilla So the word gorilla is actually in the ch of the song. and the second I read, o, one of the early gorilla songs, he actually says Gorilla in the chor. A seed was laid Higan Gorilla. A seed was laid. Soccer hooligan, mayaybe so. shout out to Wor Cup. It was very a shout out for me. That was a very hooliganish sounding song It's a little hooligan, but it's a fun. you know, it's what's ironic is that blur fans thought this alb was so dark U I've been listening to hip hop pretty much exclusively since ninety one by the time this album came out. And just like you were saying you were looking for an alternative from some of the rock bands you were Yeah. I was looking for an alternative. You got to remember ninety seven, Tupo's dead Biggie's dead Huffy has taken over all of hip hop. That's right. ninety seven ninety eight is when I decided, you know what? I got to listen to more than hip hop for the first time in like six years. What am I going to really listen to? And Rip pop just came there was a night here in in L.A. called Bang and I feel like some of some of the party throwers, some of the founders of that night mightight listen to the show. shhout out to Bang because it was a place that I could go once a week and hear all this stuff played loud It's one thing when you're like driving around town, you're just streaming your own music and you're own your own little bub But it's something else to go someplace and hear music that you think' kind of obscure, but then suddenly it's being played loud among a bunch of like med individuals. That's exciting It's community. Yeah. And I didn't know that I had a community of a whole bunch of people who obsessed over blur lyrics like I did. so that was a lot of fun. You know what, you're making me realize, see, there's a third source of music that I would have had in this moment too, because we're both post teenage years. we're not listening to the radio anymore. But this is before the era of like maybe Napster and blogs and Spotify where writing is ubiquitous And in that moment, because as I was saying it, I was like, you know what? MV was starting to phase out at this time. I just realized what it was. It started to become TRL MTV. That's right. I just realized what would have been my music source because you just made me think of it based on yours. It was probably just like the record stores in New York City. O music whereere'd you go? Kim's video and other music. Other music I rep. Other music and Kim's video, I'd walk in and I would hear something and that was my radio station Whatever the cool like record store guys at those places I play They were cool. I bought cool for me I bought so many records based on it being played in the store. I probably bought Bur. I definitely bought air. I definitely bought some Last Crash Perry records. So you're just kind of helping me fill in that gap in my musical chronology. That's so interesting. Before John Kusack and Jack Black made them seem really like J jerks, And hy I mean, I thought the guys in the record store were Well they were a little bit jerks too. Song two was always just a working title what they felt they needed for the second song on the album. Literally just the track listing, right. So it was just they always knew it was gonna be song two. They' like eventually they were like, okay,le bele Bum' go fest R. But then we'll do song two. and we'll come up with a name for it, but they just kept calling it song two. And then we are going to mangle the English accents throughout this episode. British listeners we are sorry in advance, but we're also not sorry. we're American. do this We're not sorry. it's our two hundred fiftieth anniversary. this country suck on it English Get in the ring in front of the White House. We don't feel that way. We in the USC cage C for the music, stay for the Maga talalking. No, seriously, it's a conffluence with so many things. They knew they wanted to be the second song on the album. so it's called song two. It's also two minutes and I think two secondes. So it's like for a reason, right? Yes. And by the way, when this song came out, we used to laugh that it was only two minutes long. Yeah. We used to laugh about that ' it's like, who Who records it rel two minutes now that's normal. And now that is so normal. it'd be like, Damn, whyy'd you give us a day in the life by the Beatles? T two minutes. Hey, come back with a minute thirty nine second version of the song. Ed the edit, Jesus Christ. The story really blows my mind. It relates back to how ch how they changed that one song sing into a slower song for trainspotting. The story behind song two It kind of mixes almost better. So according to Blur guitarist Graham Coxan, can we call Coxwan maybe one of our unsung heroes? because I don't sure. M people know the other members of Blur. I think that the conversions they bring in. Coxsan plays a big role here But the song did not start off as the version that we all know. Damon had this slower acoustic demo. of the song. and even the woohoo part was different. It was more like a whistle, which to me sounds so sad. It's like He's like very cynical. I love Damon for that. It sounded like this unplugged version that you were able to find. Yeah, I wasn't able to find the actual demo, but we did find this sort of like unplugged version ly version. and we believe that it would have sounded similar to this.ion all time I that's crazy. I know. And again, to be clear, thats that wasn't the demo, but we think the vibe was a little similar. Listen, that is gets Gilberto's version. Yeah so sor Sorry, Bosa. But by the way, it also sounds a little bit like Blur. This is for the real Bur fans. Am I crazy? Does this sound a little bit more like modern life is rubbish, era blur? I don't you know, like they did songs that sort of sound like Yeah always played around with genres. Yes. Yeah. And so they record this raucous version Yeah. That's almost like a joke. It's like total It's nineteen ninety seven. Grg has been dead for a while. Like in their mind, I think the idea was we're gonna do something just to piss the label off and tell them it's our new single. This is gonna to be a joke. they did. They were like, Hey, this is the single. We're gonna at in brains they're like we're being funny. We're doing the kind of Typical Pixies, quiet loud, crunchy. And by the way, like quiet loud is not completely gone because okay then I'm call it necessarily Grunge, but like you can kind of imagine Billy Corgan watching Pumpkins recording becomes part of the rock vernacular for lack of a better word. But at the time, it's also a little bit in nineteen ninety seven, a little bit of like, hey, remember this from two or three years ago? when everyone used to do this and it was kind of newish So it was a bit silly. It was clearly done as a goof, but like It's the kind of goof that as you're doing, you're like, hey, this is kind of good, right? So that's what they do. and they presented to the label and the label was like not getting the joke. They're just like They were expecting them to reject it. They loved it. They're like, this is great. great label loved it. And I want to point out this has happened a couple of times on the show that somebody has recorded a track off the label. It off the label. It often backfires. I was recently at I said Yeah. We're flipping off the record labels. No just this week, ironically, it came out that a gang star in DJ Premiere, he was like when we were producing mass appeal. He said, we came with the title first. Yeah. because he was like literally rappers are going do thing. So I'm gonna do what I think is a mass appeal hip hop song and I'm just gonna do the laziest basass loop. And Guru, you just talk about people selling out to have mass. Only the idiot would like this song. Oly And then he gave it to the label and the label's like, gangstar, listen We love mass appeal. And to this day, that is a lot of people's favorite angar song but they were It' the title of a magazine. make comommentary. Yeah about something. And here these guys were like, Hey, let's make fun of the American market. that bllur. I mean, like it's a little bit like Blur being a little bit salty that Oasis blew up so big Yeah in the United States right? They like of the United States. I'm sure we would blow up if we did some stupid stuff like I got my head. Okay just like big dumb guitars over there. Let's see what happens if we do big dumb guitars, crrunchy guitars. I bet you start off with the world is a vampire. you know They're just like right I a clown of this, but of course, the song takes off We've actually got a recording of the first ever time the song was performed. They still haven't got a title for it yet. Nor have they settled on the absence of a title being the title. So let's listen to Blur performing the song, june fifteenth, nineteen ninety six in Sweden, the first ever performance But this is another a new song we're doing I don't know what it's called and I don't even know what it's about, but You might get, you might get. Becauseuse I haven't really written it yet but We're gonna do it anyway At the moment it's called song number two And just a couple of interesting foreshadowings for this episode of One song. One is the whole fact of the lyrics. In the moment. he's like, I don't have lyrics yet. Foreshadowing, put a pin in that we'll come back to that in a minute. The other thing I'll say is that until we were preparing for this episode, I could have sworn the song was called song number two. It's just called song two, but there's Damon calling it song number two. We're also gonna talk about feel good ink. I thought you were calling that feels good ink. I thought it was feels good comma ink with a dot. Well, I have a confession Okay I always thought the name of the song was Massive Attack Unfinished symphony. I' thought that my entire life. Right And I just was likeympathy. Unfinished sympathy. There's a typo here. and I looked it up and I was like, oh dude. Hey Little Monda greens Punctuation Mondagreen. Yeah just you learned it one time wrong and it follows you. All right, so we've learned that song two lives up to its name quite literally. And the question that remains that we'll be maybe answering when we get to the stTems next, maybe not. We're gonna investigate together. Is this a grunge song? Is it a Bit pop song? Is it a sarcastic grunge song? And if it is, is that still Gunge? Could I pause a possible answer? Pause it I think that they are a Bit popong But I think that they play in so many genres because I think that it'd be silly to say that song two sounds like the rest of the Bp pop canon. It does not. Yeah. I was thinking about the song Girls and Bys. That doesn't sound like a Brip pop song either. That sounds like their attempt to do sort of like a Paul Oakenfold era dance song. You know what I mean? I think sort of like how blondie is hard to classify by pure genre because they dabble in so much. I would argue blur It sort of similar in that sense. their song actually determines genre, but the band is bripp. That's really well said. and I would even take that a step further and say You're helping me realize what Damon Albarn likes to do is play with genre. That's kind of like he's thinking about chords, melodies, lyrics, and genre. It was like going into the next song. he's like, what that's what he's in That's his recipe. Sometimes they sound like stone roses. Yeah. Sometimes they sound like Bill funky homo sapien, and we'll talk about it. And very distinct from Oasis just going back to that becauses Oasis stays in their life. Oasis is always kind of in the Beatles in the sixties lane Or the pubby lane. Yeah, or the puby Pubby lane. Py. sorry. a lot of tortured English accents today. Well, let's take a quick break. but when we get back, we're gonna get into the stems and we're gonna figure out how song two pulls all of this together. Stick around and we'll break it down Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha fappuccino drink? or a sweet vanilla? smmooth caramel maybe, or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucksappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries All right, welcome back to One song Luxury. I'd love to get into the stems. Where do you want to start? Let's start with the drums this so satisfying. Totally. So good, right? Simple, simple, simple. So simple and so basic, but so cool and like the low finess of it all we're gonna get into that. First of all What you just heard was actually not one but two drummers. I was gonna say there's like a sound in the background. Yes doing something. I was going ask you what that was. I will now tell you. So let's talk for a second about Unsung hero of this episode, Stehven Street. Oh, yeah, the producer producer of this record who was the in house engineer at Island before he started working with the Smiths The cranberries and became a producer, very well known producer at this point A very in demand dude. Exactly right. Went on to work with a lot of Bit pop producers. In fact, I read somewhere he was called, quote, the producer behind Brit Pop fromr his work with Blur, Sleeper, Catatonia, Shed seeven, Baby shhambels. I love all these sort of lesser known. ' I knew about sounds like you're making up I remember that because I remember at the time I was still reading these British magazines where you would only ever hear about Shed seeven from like, you know, page fifty of the like Nemy that week or something like that. I'm gonna admit, I feel like Shed Seven is a group that I've always heard about and N never heard of. I think I've never heard them either. Menswear, was that another Bit pop band? Yeah Yeah, menswear. Yeah Hh, you know, there's a Gomez. Yeah. Gomez was a group. We never we rarely bring up Supergrass, but Supergrassass was in the mix. Supergrass would have been my number one. Really? They were my favorite Brit pop man. Absolutely. So mister Street, by the way, nickname is Streety. That's know they referred to him. That's so British. It's like hookie tootally. Streety. So Streety set up two drum kits in the room We think that one of them might have been like annoyment, like a U eighty seven, but the other one The others were these cheap PCM mics that he put on the wall. These really cheap microphones are contact microphones, whichich is part of why you get this really low fi sound, this really crappy sound. And to both Dave Roundree, the regular drmer for bllue I thought that was going to be our thing here. I feel like Roundree does not give the love that he deserves. shhout out to Roundree. Round Tree was one of the two drummers in Graham Coxon and the guitar player was the other one. spepecifically, he's playing that clicking sound on the side of a tom, a floor tom. But then he does the end of four on the tom. So he's going dick d dick dick d dick dick tom d d d d toom d. And can you play it again listen out for that because I was wondering what that was. That's a great idea. Here we go Yeah Okay, it's every other one. here's the tue. But why plus A What You're right I had never never that before. So it's more of a four bar loop. I'm just gonna listen again Oh there it is You never noted that. I just wanted to watch you because that was a joy for me. I was looking at the wrong thing. There's actually four notes in there. I'm gonna watch you this. Okay. All right, here we go That last one is so dainty and It's very kind. It's very loving. It's very loving. veryery posh. So the other thing to bring into this conversation in nineteen ninety six, it's still relatively early, especially especially importantly, especially in rock music. for there to be digital and the idea of using samplers and loops, et cetera, relatively new. There are some bands that have been doing it for a while, more so than others. New Order being a perfect example. We justllot it to them But in this moment Stephven Street is just starting to experiment with digital technology. So he's got this Otari radar, which is this early hard drive recording thing. It's less screeny and mouseousy than P tools. In other words, that's one of the reasons people don't want to move from tape. Because like you're just, especially back then, you're locked in this tiny screen with a little mouse trying to make music. It's very unmusical sounding So he finds kind of this middle ground and that's how he gets the two bars that you identified. And that's how we're getting a loop out of that drum beat He finds the two bars that you've been noticing all these years are the same throughout the song And in nineteen ninety six, that's how you do it. He doesn't have an NPC. He's using this like crazy Otari kind of like lesser known piece of technology The band goes in and plays on top of that loop, including Roundry who plays the chorus, which is the bigger drum sound, right? And Damon is just jumping around with his SM fifty seven, singing the song, but he's singing guide vocals. He doesn't have lyrics yet No keepeep that in mind as we go through the song because that's how all the music that you hear, short a handful of overdubs came together They made that first beat, they band played on top of it. and Danon was just kind of like joking around with his SM fifty seven with like, didn't have lyrics. He just kind of had like little placeholder words, right? So you've got a British band using sampling techniques. You know what it is? I know what it is. It's the self looping It's the self self looping. Yeah. and we've self looping like when you like push a pedal. That's right. you go. We've been to be clear, we've been hearing this for a while. Tortis headads dummy. A lot of that record is the band playing And then not only did they take loops from that record, they put them on vinyl and then sampled the vinyl of their own performances Yeah. And that became the Portis head song was a littleally of a sample of the band playing.. So again, to be clear, this isn't a new idea altogether. but for blur. This is starting to lay the groundwork, I think, for what we're going to start seeing in Damon Abarn's later work I was gonna to say it's like primitive radio go standing outside a broken phone. Oh my go. Booth with money in my hand. rememember that song? That's rings about play for. That's an example of samly. Let's check that out I played off my lat I mean, that's not obviously primitive radio go sampling themselves, but is like at the time sort of revolutionary that a rock band would sample anything. But I appreciate that really helps make still say sampling stealing. Right. And that helps make the distinction of what's unique about this is the band sampling themselves as also like a recorder. And if they had really committed to it, they should have suothed themselves. They should have sued this band blur. And said, how dare you sample thieves Can I just say that crash energy? Amazing. Like ' the drums don't change drastically at the chorus, but that constant symbol doesn't I can't you lay lif. I can't listen to song and not like air drrum it. I mean, you saw me in the intro, you saw me just now. Let's listen again. W H you're in charge of the tom Where are the two drummers? Heold, Wh are the two drummers? Ready? Here we go. onene, two, three. Wh I want the h. I't I can'tar him anymore I'll give it to you with I I can'tar him. This is so important that it's going to be Bld in the mix. Okay, here we go They find it there I can't hear it. man. It's like when you ask somebody to like sing a song but you're playing anotherother song in they theirre head I can't hear it. someone sees you on the street who' a fan of your work, your comedy works, tellell me a jo Be funny, funny man. Only real assholes do. That's never a fan of your work. I'm a huge fan, Albert Brooks, Tell me something funny.. I was hoping to see that dainty Tom. I can't do the dainty Tom. You know, this is why I work alone. This is why I work alone in the studio. I'm like, Hey, everybody turn down the lights like Marvin Gay and burn some incence Let's talk about the base. Alex James. I don't think he gets a whole lot of love outside of us Blur fans, but he's laid down some of the best baselines in in history. I think it's sae to say in history, this is not necessarily a song where I feel like the bass has much to do. So what is Alex doing on this song? The notes are few. Yeah. The rhythms are simple, but the sound enormous. Let's listen . Wow, that is so nirvonic. Can I just Yeah. Yes, it is. Who who's crystal what's what's Christ of it So? Yeah, I feelt like that is that is right off of inbloom, you know? Oh yeah. bigig wall of disported b Wall disistported bass sounds What what's funny is I had actually just heard that my untrained here from nineteen ninety seven. I just heard that as a guitar. It never occurred to me that's actually a bass guitar. Like you gotta remember as a blur fan, like Alex is laying down as far as I know, you know, songs like London looves, which has a crunchy bass line. Yeah. So like he's usually like kind of prominent. Sure. This was not a song where I like even knew that he was even on it, but he's on it. The tone quality overlap. L love it. A crunchy guitar, a crunchy bass. It's just a register thing. It's just lower in frequency, right? Just a quick note about the structure of this song, the arrangement, we start with the intro, which is basically the first chorus Now we go into the first verse, a second chorus The second time around, we have kind of a post chorus. You know, you might call it a bridge, but there's like a new chord is introduced, basically So Exactly right. We're gonna listen to that but I'll tell you what it is after we listen to it Yeah. Let's listen again because it's so funny.'s like very funny. That sounds word like based. So what he does is he transitions from the court janges into this kind of extended post chorus. Oh. Please toasia. It's so funny s That' great. Yeah And apparently that's a second bass. It's actually just a bass guitar, but being played through a tiny battery powered marsial, not a marthial stack Not the giant amplifiers. not when you go see ACDC or Wezer or whoever or Dudas priest and like it's a wall of amplifiers. It's a tiny little battery powered marthial amplifier. I love it. And it just sounds like this little funny wayaring It sounds like it almost like eight bit. Yeah. I love that. Really cheap. By the way, I was trying to figure out why sounds like the sixties to me, and I figured it out It sounds like Beck New Paluia, the B, which I would have heard around the same time. Yes. You know, like it's that sort of like L back to our sixties sitar a. I's gonna say like it's like our pain at black episode There's a sort of nasal connecting of the notes. It's not a distinct One note to the next portamento where it's like It' It sounds like you're in a really cool party in the nineteen sixties, either on the sunset strip or in S swing in London and someone's either got a guitar, which is legit or somebody's just doing something really trippy with their bass guitar. Yeah. But it's a sound, it's a vibe. And it's not the kind of thing you play and you're like, manan, I just played a really cool rifft that's like sexyle ny. I think it's more this is fucked up and I'm fucked up but this is great. I guess it could also be, hey, this is hilarious. I have no idea. It feels silly and just in the tone of this sly sense. Yeah. defeinitely sounds a good time. Can also say it doesn't surprise me that they had a small battery Battery Howard Marshall. Yeah because you know, there's something about like Before all of our cars had these amazing sound systems that any one of us would have died to have back in nineteen ninety one. you had to get all you had to get tens of thousands of dollars of speakers and amps into your car back then to equate what is factory now But like this is a song that like because it's not relying on like thick and heavy bass, it sounds good on speakers both big and small on an radio or whatever.. Yeah like no matter where you hear this song, it kind of works. Yeah. I mean that's probably one of the reasons why it works well in car commercials. you know, selling stuff ' like no matter what kind of speakers you have at home, you're like, Oh man, my life's pretty good. My TV's got good speakers. and I should probably buy these steaks. The song that makes you feel good about havingap cheap speakers. A song so good you forget about how your station in life is See, Blur is just they're part of the establishment, They're industry plantans so that we will not hold a revolution. I'm kidding. Damon is like one of the most revolution endor forces out there. My two sents, Not necessarily luxuries. I think he's showilling me C here this whole time Let's talk about what the guitar is doing in this because this is a very guitar driven, driy Let's take over America type song. This is a riffy riffy song. let' talk about the riffiness of this riffy song as played by Graham Coxson And let's listen to the top That was five quter years YM ukule style. You know It's a little dude. It's a little out of tune too I've heard him in an interview. see that yeah. Yeah, an interview I want to give credit to. It's produced like a pro, another great channel I would recommend. He talks about how he thingss in his memory that that was probably a telecaster. And maybe in the next part we're about to hear when he crunches it up, he's probably going through a rp pedal. But the goal was to be cheap sounding. The goal was to be dinky. in his own words, quote, I wanted a clangy, clean crap sound. not played particularly well. He also said that he was quote tiredred of doing complicated parts. He wanted to do something horrible and noisy. I love it. That's such a mission statement. This song is quote, horrible and noisy, but like horrible and the best possible use of that. You have to be really good at something artistically to do the bad version of it. That's to see the best bad acting, you need so I'm going to give a shout out to Fred Armis in front of the show L he's really good at bad acting because it's a good actor.. You know, And I feel like this is an example of It's like P premiere producing what he thought was gonna to be a hacky hip hop hit, but you're actually massive They're trying to be crappy is legendary.. And herear Graham Coxson kind of trying to sound crappy. sounds amazing. That's exactly right. So when he stomps on those stomp boxes, whatever they it turned out to have been. Yeah, we've got two different guitars in the chorus. I'll isolate them. Here's the first one And By the way, there's about, I don't know, a dozen h. probablybat here right here That's right, let's isolate that and I can play that for you. Oh really? And to be clear, I mean, they've layered that guitar six, seven, twelve times. It's not just a single guitar or two guitars. Here is that thing that you heard, this like one note kind of cresgendoy thing, this insistent thing And look at how dissant it is This a Sonic youth band. I can see that. And it's getting louder Crescento So we stop So is this everybody out? Inistent back to the ukule. Just ukule. It's so like it starts out sounding a little dissonant, like a little bit sonic Uutthy, almost.. And we're just hearing this one note and it gets crescendo, It gets louder and louder and louder. And it gets more and more like stress inducing, right Your brain is telling you it's getting louder, but thatounds like danger. So you can't ne no, it's spawning fight or flight, rightight? Let's listen together. Here's all the guitars in the chorus together here get louder Sweet reallyine in the very end when we go back to just the, you know, crappy sound. you were just you were just raging Pogo dancing on the dance floor. So when it goes back to like, I'm gonna it's not a ukule guys. you know that, but I call it the ukule park because it's like so small and dainty. Like, you know, that's where you're like H you got like one more ear to save up your energy before we go into that last. I always like the song is that It's called songtube. It's two minutes and two seconds. It has two verses. Yeah. ye ye. It's technically, you would have made the argent. It's got three choruses, but if we weren't counting that intro I'm only saying the intro is the chorus. I don't think it happens, but lyrically it doesn't have the s. Well we go to the chorus twice, I would say in the chus in the core of the song. So Maybe should have been called two song two and a half. Song two and a half for that extra chorus at the top there. Yeah, exactly. And at the very end, we have that same insistent thing but another note gets added Let's listen I isolate that I hear something souder. Yeah So we had it, it was a minor third, and then we added a fifth on top. So it wass basically a chord. It's a triad And it just sort of fills it out a little bit more, but it also makes it more urgent, insistent and like, I can't wait for this. It's a little bit tense. It's always tension resolution, tension resolution before in the earlier choruses, the resolution to the tension was the next verse. Here it's just the song ending, which is kind of sweet relief when it happens. So let's listen to the very end Wrapped ending is just like, Phew We made it. We didn't get killed by this third in this fifth that's trying to stab me It feels like a stabbingotion It's very psyche Oh wita., that note and I'll do the one underneath it D If you're still listening, thank you. Thank you for indulging with us. For are the Graam Coxs and sccouting notes Graams man Gram's a man. There's something about this rift that's very old and yet new. L It's recognizable to have a riff that's d d d d d d, which is one, seven, three, four, five. We've heard a lot of that before. It certainly evokes a lot of the grungeer. It's not literally the same chords as, you know, smmells like Teeen spirit, but it's got a little bit of that vibe. It also kind of evokes this one to my ears Now we're getting some similar chords there. one seven, one. And of course it being a riff oriented song also part of the character that binds it to this song in the lineage of crunchy, riff driven you know, distorted guitar songs, The kinks practically invented that as a genre as a thing to do. So we're kind of getting a little a bit of that lineage there. And for me, another song that evokes it after the fact I always think of this song that I'm about to play as harkening back to and maybe not existing were it not for song two. That's the hives hate to say I told you so The first three chords are the same in all three of the songs that we just heard, and they just share a lineage of being like Riff driven rock songs that start with the riff. happen to share these chord changes that are very evocative of each other. While we're talking about the highs, I wantan to give a shout out to the interternational Ns consonserers. that a great sweet. I thought those garageck thought that group was the freaking truth when they came out. tootally. I loved INC. Yeah. And also the vines, you know, people forget INC internationalids conspiracy, the Hives, the vines started off that way and the vines actually had a song that had a major crossover. I would argue that Blur song two in nineteen ninety seven kind of leads the way into this moment where we've got the hives, the white Strikes. White stripes, that low f. Yes. It's a garage rock, riff driven crunchy guitar where the hook and ar with the guitar riff is the hook of the song at the beginning of. Yes. like the strokes, you know It's part of the BBC and radio onene, they did a lot to champion those low fi groups early on, probably in part because it was easy to go from being a Blur fan, which I was into a fan of all those groups, which I was It was a gateway drug. Yeah. Blur was the gateway drug. Absolutely And then one last thing just for fun. So those three songs all have the same first three chords, but here's one song with all the same chords. This is twenty one pilots stressed out. Now listen to this and sing song two on top of it, ready Here we go turn back time. How be offten work. N that Ea was justress that. I don't know if I hear that. know it's literally the believe. Yeah. Usually I could be like,, this one I'm like, No, it's just fun to think about how if you wanted to kind of coover the blur song orr right sideways. Right or right sideways. W, w,,a way down. Just grab thoseoos. by slowing it down. So what's interesting about that is bying I't stressed out is gonna to sell products. It' fun though to think about this connection with chord changes, especially as being, yeah, when you change the tempo, when you slow it down, when you change the instrumentation, and the melody is very different. it is hard to hear the similarity, but they are built on the exact same chord progression, the same harmonic progression. Now earlier, you had brought up the fact that he had placeholder lyrics in this song. Yes. I want to talk about the vocals on song two because Love Damon, love his love his voice. and love his lyrical choices. L I do hear the humor Maybe not always in the distorted base, but I always hear the humor in a good blur line. Yeah,. So it's sardonic all the time.. By the way, that sounds like the worst party. You can it's sardonic all the time. M girw is sardonic all the time. Anyway, listen we Eddie Murphy made the right choice, man a call. Come on the show Eddie, we will definitely talk about we'll talk about whatever wantna talk about I want to talk about these lyrics. So what tell me the story of the lyrics behind song two. Basically, there weren't lyrics written. So when they recorded it, that I was mentioning before in the control room with the band playing and Damon had his SM fifty seven and he just like, w. That was a guide vocal And then they recorded it And then he wrote new lyrics and they tried to record the new lyrics And they listen to it and they're like, it was better before with a guide vocal. And that's what we hear today. So that's the guide vocal. What we're hearing today is what Damon Albarn was shouting in the control room on an SM fifty seven while the band played it for the first time. One thing we want to point out about song two is that the woohoo is not Actually a lyric in the traditional says' a sound, is a hook, It's a crowd cute. It's almost like a drum field that everybody in the stadium can sing along with It's the evil genius of having a hook being non lyrical. It's international. Oh yeah. You can go to the deepest, you know, outbacks of whatever continents and Greenland say. Maybe maybe Australia. Yeah. Let's hear a little bit of isolated woohoo Heere's the bleed. Totally lots of bleed. That's because the band is playing it while he's singing And That's just it four times. Here you go And of course, like Damon did not invent woohoo. It did not start there. You can go all the way back to the Rock of teens from nineteen fifty nine, this is woohoo That was fantastic. sounds familiar, but you didn't know the Rcket teines. Right right. That's probably because it got famously covered. Let's hear a little bit of the five sixty seven eights and their version from Win nineteen ninety six a year before song two So maybe this maybe the title was on his mind when he went into the recording with Az. I mean, maybe I'm always going to associate that song with Quin Tarantino and Kill Bill because that was the first time that I had heard it. But we also like to sayound on this show Who knows who invented Woooo? We can't really know It sounds very like the cavean invented woooo. Like some very early human being made the sound woo and then the sound who came right after it? Naturally. some it's like, Hey, woo. they're like, who. We don't know. I often say that join doctor S Stokes now. I often say that there could have been a race record that is sort of lost a time that could have been the first use of you of woohoo recorted things. So like we sometimes say on this show. all recorded history ain't recorded And so we'll never go out of our way to say this was the absolute first, but we can trace some of these lines back to earlier earlier music. I'm curious about the verses on this song. Like who were these like were they intentionally weird and cryptic expresses we don't know know it's funn about this episode is how much research we've all done. And there's a lot of stuff that I love that Alburn has sort of left unanswered. Yeah. And I think that's all right. I think whatever popped in his head that day is what we're hearing. whereere it comes from, it's unclear, but it's sort of wonderully poetic as a result. And the fact that your friend, as we said, in the anecdote at the beginning of this episode Didn't refer to this song as the Woohoo song as the Jumbo Jet song. Let's listen to that line Ive got my head shacked. F a jumbo Chad It wasn't easy But nothing as No B lovey meow Is that made Where al lie y O of a time I' never show I nate you Oh saage. And you can hear in the bleed the entirety of the track. I heard the insistent guitar line. So they'd obviously laay down the entire thing or maybe he was playing that live in the room. Thatue. Yeah, it's interesting. Like you can hear the evidence of the kind of chronology of how the song got made in the bleed. Can we hear a little bit of the second verse I got my hat done Wind When I was young That' a problem. Is it your problem It's not my problem. R a feel Ly metadow A upars out I n up. I' was playing through why not? Wh a l I'mazing. All of ins time but I'm never show why I nate you Pace up me Ch! Yeah! We're just gonna listen to the Edward Kicks. Yeah, yeah. Yeah yeah. I'm sorry. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I count it. there's about if you don't include, there's like fifty words total on There's not a lot of words. Not lot of words. This might be the longest episode of one song ever. It's about a two minute song and it's point ten. Heaven forbid he' done two and a half minutes? this would just be a five hour episode. And by the way, the verse melody is, I think, three notes. I think littleittle variations every now and then and he's like d d d d d It's three note melody, two non verbal words, woohoo. What a lesson in simplicity and two minutes And not overthinking. I think that in my own work, we've talked about Sometimes when you've been working on music, there's so many times I feel like as an artist, it's very easy to just overthink it. And yet when I see things that I really like, they're usually with the exception of Chinatown, that is an insane plot that does not work. The protagonist has almost no effect on the story. It breaks so many rules with'ception of Chinatown Uh Most things I watch, I'm like They kept it simple and clean and it was enjoyable. And I think this is an example. I know I found this really great quote from Albar and he explains about his own process. He says, quote, As soon as I hear myself doing anything I've done before, I just do something else. I go the other way or I just go above or below. I can't bear repeating myself As soon as I finished something, I think that's terrible. Right? I better start again I totally get it. I love that about and. sometometimes I do wish you'd go back because sometimes there's like some undiscovered, you know gold in some of those early ideas or whatever, but I think that that perfectly fits with The the man who I've never met, but I think I know through his art I totally get it too. It's just like you can't repeat yourself the same way. My first job was at Jimmy Fallon, which is technically part of the Saturdayight Live. It's like, if it works, you do it five more times. That's right. That's actually. So like right if Hans and Franz wins or Penelope, you know Chris making copy this making copy Run it to the ground. Absolutely. a good idea just run to the ground on that show. Domingo the song that they with espresso, like you do it a couple of times and then when the audience stops laughing then you move honestly for my own like interpolation thing like, there's part of my brain that's like, I should really push that more, but it's really hard for me to be like, you can't you can't be c'synical. Yeah. Yeah. I feel cynical. If you printed up shirts that said interpolation, youd probably make a lot of money. I might. But you every time somebody ask you, they're like, Hey you on my shirt Be funny. Tell a joke Then you'd be like, oh, man I shouldn' have sold out. Or I should' have sold out for more. That' be held back. All right, we've heard the song, Luxury of a manan. how did the splits break down? Please don't let me down. Do you want to take a guess first before I tell you the real numbers? behind the scenes Well, gosh, by this point, I don't know. Let's recap. Okay. I do know can I for it? I'm gonna make an educated guest. The band did kind of break up You know, not on this album, but after the next one sort of. think the groundwork might have. Yeah, I feel like they put out their last s one twenty two thousand three maybe. that that was the think tank album So I'm going to go with Damon making like thirty seven forty percent and then the other members splitting the sixty. That's a pretty good guess. Damon Aubn, forty five percent I know this man. I've listened to too many hours of his voice today You're dead on. businessusiness negotiation. You're dead on. In fact, you did a malid by guessing by undergessing. man. I was hoping it' thirty seven percent. David Holbarn is forty five percent of the publishing splits on song two. Graham Leslie Coxson is next with twenty five percent U Stepehven Alexander James. Yeah. whoo is that? Oh Alex Alex. It was like, who's Stehven James? Alex James. H first name is Stehven and he gets seventeen point five percent. And mister Roundterry in the drummer chair is left with the remaining twelve and a half percent. twelve percent where the drummer w. And those drums came in strong. comeome on guys. Damon made four times as much. And let me just say this, this is no shade on on Damon, but knowing now that like, Damon had, you know on a slower song and it was Graham who suggested this stuff, assuming that that's correct think that even his percentage sounds low I really am an egalitarian when it comes to split money Well for the sake of a band sting together certainly your point. It's not super shocking it didn't last much. And if you don't and if you don't if it's not always equal, equal, equal, at least if you know what the guy contributed to the song, Hey, speed it up, slow it down or this other guy playing some rocket drums here. like, you know, I don't know, man. I don't know But you know what,? when I meet Damon, he might be like, you know, Graams overstating it or They get along now They get along now. That's good. Well, as we come to the end of our part one, I guess you could say, of our Damon Albert series You know, I think the thing about Song two is that it took all the years of Damon and the guys meeting and then you know, forming a group called Circus and then changing the name to Seymour And then changing it to Bur. took all the albums all the way through Park life. and self titled Bur album to get to this point to release this song to get, as I said earlier, good enough where they could record a song that was kind of bad But then also broke them w. And I will say as a fan of Blur, if you go to Blur fan, you're like, oh, I love song too. It's a little bit like going to a radio had fan and say, I love creep You know like it's gott to be careful. Yeah, I mean, like it's not going to impress us right away. We'd much rather hear, oh, you know, I really like to the end or you know, one of these other songs. Yeah.. I like the deep cuts. I do like some deep cuts and After Song two, nothing was ever the same for the group. There was so much pressure on their next album, thirteen to have a song to like success And I would point out that one of my favorite songs by them is the second song on thirteen, which you can almost imagine being all choppy and distorted.ay Maybe the label thought it was going be the next song too. It's a great song called Bug Man isten. it's a fucking great song. but The group was never the same after song two. and I think like so many people, you know, Bandmates get older and people want to do different things with their life. You know, it's been almost thirty years since song two came out. And this is still that one song that my kids know And I know thatny. I know that the band was very frustrated when they played Cachella just last year because America temporarily warm to this band And then the name of the band went away even as the song stayed famous a little bit. And he was very frustrated that that crowd. didn't know Blur as well as like a British crowd, you know even of young people. Meanwhile dont famously is with their comeback to our making billions of dollars in America less. Very interesting in that way. But I just want to say on behalf of Blur fans, specifically in America, Damon Mission accomplished. those of us who heard it and really heard it, we really appreciate you We might even be too old to be a Coachella. I know that I feel very comfortable sometimes watching Coachella from the comfort of my house on one of those five feeds. We're still here. The American Bur fans are still here and we hope that you've appreciate this episode because this is a love letter to your blur years. And I want to say a little bit about your gorilla's yearsars Well we're going to get into that in part two of this two partriate episode. When we talk about the gorillas and we're going to start with a song not off their first album, but off their second album, feeleel goodood Ink. But trust me, as we always do in one song, we're going to talk about the group. We're going to talk about their albums and songs before that song, feel Good Ink. and then we're going to talk about the legacy of Damon that continues to this day. both blur and outside of blur So I hope you'll listen to that. Check out next week's One song. Until then, be safe All right, as always, you can find us on socials. you can find me on Instagram at Diialo DIA LO and on Instagram at Valla Riddle. And you can find me on Instagram at LUXX URY and on TikTok at Luxury XX. You can also watch full episodes of One song on YouTube and Spotify. Just search One song podcast. We' love it if you like and subscribe Also be sure to check out the One song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find that link in our episode description. I said it like that, but that's where I'm gonna leave it. Because we also have a Patreon now. That's right. Patreon d. com slash Dialo Luxury. That's right. And if you've made this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation. Show us some love, give us five star review if you can. And send this episode out to a fellow music nerd. It really helps us keep the show going All right, let'sy help me in this thing I'm producer DJ songwriter, musicologist and every Friday night from ten PM till midnight, KCRW DJ Luxury. And I'm actor writer, director and sometimes DJ Dola Riddle And this is onene song. We'll see you next time This episode was recorded at KCRW Headquarters, Engineer by Katie Gilcrress prodrouced, edited, and mixed by the one in only Eric Higs.