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Back to: Archive · 1995

From Mojo magazine, September 1995. By David Cavanagh.

Summer 1995: deep in the seething crucible of west London, tension is at fever pitch as the white heat of technology inflames the artistic process to ever more frenzied activity. Blur are recording their fourth album, 'The Great Escape', and Mojo is there exclusively to observe the creation of the most eagerly-awaited long-player of 1995.

"He stared gratefully at the back of Myrna's head, at the pigtail that swung innocently at his knee. Gratefully. How ironic, Ignatius thought. Taking the pigtail in one of his paws, he pressed it warmly to his wet moustache."

Cor, good ending.

Placing the just-finished paperback of John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy Of Dunces" face down on the leather settee beside him, Alex James lights a thoughtful cigarette and immediately begins work on Colette's "The Rainy Moon And Other Stories", which he has it on reliable authority could be 'saucy'. What's Graham doing? Slouched across two chairs behind Alex, Graham Coxon reads "South Of Heaven" by Jim Thompson, a tough American novel for a guitarist who currently only listens to the most extreme American hardcore music. Where did Dave go? Taking up the rest of the settee is Dave Rowntree, who is approximately halfway through "The Aeroplane Technical", the immensely putdownable Highway Code of the clouds that will help him to get his license to fly single-engine aircrafts before the summer is out.

"We could always put a bit of 12K on the sonic EQs," says Stephen Street at the controls.

Good idea, thinks Alex. Looking ahead tonight, plans-wise, there's a rather pleasant evening in the offing at Madam Jo Jo's in Brewer Street - have to remember to phone Lloyd Cole re: that one - and then, oh dear, the EMI suits are coming in tomorrow at 11 for a listen, aren't they, so we might have to call it a night at something reasonable, say around five.

Lying splayed on the floor with his legs up on the desk, Damon Albarn listens to the dreary voice of Ken Livingstone MP nasalling loudly over the big speakers once more for the brokenhearted, and erupts into hearty laughter.

"How many other bands on the planet," he asks of nobody in particular, "would do a song like that?"

The phone goes. "That'll be for me," says Alex.

In a private-looking mews between Fulham Broadway Methodist Church and a dress shop called The Frock Exchange lies Maison Rouge Studios. This area of London SW6 is functional and unfashionable, which is presumably why they put the tube station nearby. Every alternative Saturday between August and May, at around 5pm, the stretch is closed to traffic and patrolled by policemen on horseback, trying to siphon 4,500 skittish fans of Manchester United or Liverpool on to a handful of District Line trains heading East. Even on a non-playing day such as today, you can't not know where you are. High above the roofs of Maison Rouge and the surrounding shops, one of the Stamford Bridge floodlights - home of Chelsea FC - effects a giant premonitory meridian like a Reactolite triffid, a midweek Eiffel, an automobile-gobbling pussycat drawn by Terry Gilliam. Chelsea and Maison Rouge are neighbours.

Damon Albarn is a writer, a musician and a Chelsea supporter. By strolling a mere 200 metres from one location to another, he can go from singing words as lovely as, "Hit traffic on the Dogger Bank/Up the Thames to find a taxi rank/Sail on by with the tide and fall asleep", to shouting phrases as indecorous as, "What the f*** do you call that, Spackman?" In that short walk, his accent changed too - from classless London moderne to Jaggerised yob Cockney. Neither accent is affectation. Born in London, raised in Essex and (briefly) Turkey, he has at least three regular speaking voices, including an impressive media "whistle" - heard on Radio 4's Loose Ends - that consists primarily of saying the words "sort of" very prettily and delicately as though he were the late Anthony Blunt attempting to make a decision about a possible forgery.

They seek him here, they seek him there... But since it's Chelsea FC's day-off, Damon Albarn can only be in Maison Rouge. Here in the heart of Fulham, Blur are recording their fourth album, the follow-up to that gleeful 16-tracker and instant Number 1, 'Parklife'. Having gone in with 12 new songs in mid-January, Blur are working at a steady lick to get about 80 minutes of thrilling music in the can by early May: the completed album, to be titled 'The Great Escape', plus several high-quality B-sides. Appearing around town once or twice during the month of February - notably the Brit Awards, for the collecting of four of - a Blur chap or two was heard to say how superbly well the album was progressing, and how one should amble down oneself. Well, it is now late March and Blur are now reported - admittedly by breathless acolytes on full salary - to be making one hell of a long-player. It is time to go down to Maison Rouge.

Of the three albums made by Blur thus far ('Leisure', 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' and 'Parklife'), 37 of the 44 songs in question were recorded in this red-bricked Fulham building. Neither legendary nor possessed of a photo-opportune zebra crossing without, Maison Rouge is nonetheless the preferred working milieu of Blur and Stephen Street, a deceptively young-looking man in his early thirties who has produced 31 of the 44 songs, including all but one on the famed 'Parklife'. Street is Blur's friend, ally, conduit and producer of choice. (He has also produced both Cranberries albums and three by The Smiths.)

The iron gate outside Maison Rouge whirrs open mechanically at your approach, as once did Patrick McGoohan's front door in The Village, and you're inside. The four members of Blur are this afternoon assembled in the control room, as are Street himself and Blur's favoured engineer John Smith.

Damon: "Now she does know that we want proper Japanese singing, does she? I don't want some Japanese rock chick."

Street: "Damon, she'll be fine, I've told her what to expect."

Damon: "Otherwise, I can go down to Portobello Market tomorrow morning and get a cassette with the singing I want. But if you think she's going to be fine..."

Street: "She'll be fine."

The song they are discussing, which the band have recently recorded, is called 'Japanese Workers'. A sad ode to loneliness, it begins with a few moony, bibbling sounds reminiscent of something off Eno's 'Another Green World', only to embrace a poignant melody. The lyric, which uses characterisation in order to address personal concerns - an Albarn trademark - is superficially about a young Nissan employee in Japan who works prohibitively long hours and finds he has no time to see his girlfriend. Actually, it was written about Damon's girlfriend of four years, Justine Frischmann of Elastica, whom he had not seen for months because Elastica and Blur were touring separate parts of the world.

The words he wants the Japanese girl to sing are: "I work for the company/We work together/We work for the future/They will protect me." It will be quite a sly coup to get a native Japanese to sing a verse that so baldly incriminates her own country. However, the key lines in this song have nothing to do with Japan. They are sung by Damon and they are nakedly to-the-point: "I never see you/We're never together/I love you forever."

Used to studios and to each other, Blur waste little time in Maison Rouge. Arriving at the studio each day around noon, they work through until 10 in the evening, with a half-hour break for dinner at six. "We've always seen ourselves as putting on white coats and going into the lab," explains Damon with a smile. They rarely drink alcohol while recording, preferring tea. Apart from Damon, a non-smoker, they get through a fearful number of cigarettes.

As of - where are we? - April, only one of the new songs has been heard in public: Mr Robinson's Quango, a song about a cross-dressing politician, was debuted at Blur's Alexandra Palace show at the end of 1994. Otherwise, well, there is Stereotypes, a singalong pop song that could make a dynamic album-opener. Globe Alone is frantic Devo-style New Wave. Charmless Man, about an unscrupulous yuppie throwback, is chiming and resplendent. And Country House, fondly aimed at Food Records' now-retired owner, Dave Balfe, concerns a man who gets rich and goes off to live in luxury. (And it includes a psychedelic-sounding middle section that might well be Blur's most adventurous 30 seconds ever.)

Interestingly, this album is the first Blur have been allowed to record with no outside interference whatsoever. It is assumed they will come up with at least four hit singles. Their record companies, Food and its parent EMI, have left them alone to get on with it. Success has brought freedom.

"Prior to Parklife," Damon says, "we lived in our own little world. And now the world lives in... our... er, little world," he finishes, starting to laugh. "Basically, there's no longer any need for us to feel like a gang."

"We all need each other's support or criticism, though," Graham adds. "I wouldn't be comfortable doing a lot unless it could be checked out by other people. I trust Stephen quite a bit."

The second track to be worked on today is called Ernold Same. No relation to the similarly named transvestite from the first Pink Floyd single, Ernold is instead a dreadfully dull suburban commuter whose life consists of living the exact same day over and over: get up, put his suit on, get the train to work, live by the clock. He is three-fifths Tony Hancock in The Rebel (pre-artistic awakening) to one-fifth Reginald Perrin (minus the hallucinations of hippopotami) to one-fifth Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (minus the Andie MacDowell interest). He is also very like the Tracy Jacks character from Parklife. Another commuter, another dull existence. Does this signal a shortfall of new Blur ideas?

Then you hear the song's backing track. And bloody hell. An accordion-led waltz, it has that wonderfully sick, genteel feel of the Fawlty Towers theme tune, but possessing also a slight French feel via The Magic Roundabout music. A wheedly Stylophone-like keyboard tune is offset by a string section as exuberant and as queasy as the musical efforts of the trio of elderly ladies in the Alastair Sim film The Green Man. Elsewhere a convivial banjo is heard. Drums are discreetly brushed. A soprano sax pythons in, liquoricely.

To this deranged soup, Damon is right now attempting to suffix the sound of a hand-held glockenspiel. Standing in the studio, he calls instructions to Street. He wants a sort of reveille effect, a rising arpeggio of Hi-De-Hi notes. Bing, bing, bong, bong. A sampled underlay of background noise is his cue: his glockenspiel will chime over the top, representing the sound of a platform tannoy broadcast to a packed English railway station at morning rush-hour. (The backdrop, however, is not a train station. As Street explains, it is a recording of an indoor swimming-pool. Everyone who hears it assumes it is a station.)

Bing, bing, bong, bong. Damon reads the Ernold Same lyric in a mourningful voice: "Ernold Same awakes from the same dream, in the same bed, in the same room..." He calls a halt and tries it again. "Takes the same train, and sits in the same seat, with the same stain, that he does everyday." And once more. "Poor old Ernold Same..." Damon isn't happy. Coming into the control room, he tells Street that his voice is not right for the narration and they'll have to opt for Plan B. Damon explains that they thought something like this might happen. When a character is too extreme for Damon to voice - as with the title track of Parklife - they have to send for the professionals. On Parklife it was Phil Daniels. The only voice deemed irritating and tedious enough adequately to depict the monotony of Ernold Same is that of Ken Livingstone, the famously nasal Honourable Member for Brent East. A quick phone call and he is pencilled in.

Graham Coxon is tinkering on a Gibson Autumn Sunburst, one of five electric guitars he plays on the new album (the others are a Les Paul, a Telecaster, a Jaguar and a Fender 12-string). He also contributes on baritone sax, soprano sax and banjo. Additionally, he plays some acoustic guitar. Finally, he sings a significant amount of backing vocals.

If Blur operate any kind of hierarchy in the studio, Graham would come a close second after Damon. Uninvolved in songwriting, Graham is nevertheless the group's best musician. A restless 26-year-old, prone to moodiness, he is Blur's youngest member and has been Damon's best friend since they were schoolboys in Colchester in the early '80s. To watch them work together can be touching. Trying out a completely new song, Damon mouths nonsense words and ebulliently strums an acoustic guitar as Graham, frowning at the Gibson, dextrously shapes his fingers around every conceivably relevant chord. "Yes!" shouts Damon. "That's good." Within three run-throughs, the song has a raw structure. Little more than an hour after that, Graham is laying down his rhythm guitar part. A stunning mixture of half-scales, growling blues accents, string-bending and perfectly-calculated gaps, it reduces Street to a whisper. "That's great guitar playing, Graham," he says softly, getting a wordless thumbs-up by way of reply.

"You can see," says Street to MOJO, when Graham has gone, "why I rate him as the best guitarist around. He plays things Johnny Marr wouldn't even think of."

The song began life some weeks ago as a piano ballad entitled Dear Ray. Intended as a musical tribute to the leader of The Kinks - one of two writers palpably to have influenced Damon Albarn's creative identity since 1993 (the other is Martin Amis) - it was written during a hiatus between rehearsing and performing Waterloo Sunset as a duet with Davies on the Channel 4 music programme The White Room. "I was in love with him for that hour," Damon confesses. Playing it on the piano now, Damon suggests a rhythm based on Tempted by Squeeze.

As soon as Graham gets to work on it, all faux Motown colour falls by the wayside. It quickly takes on the dynamic of XTC's Respectable Street - a song Graham claims not to remember - and then swerves violently into Blur-land upon the guitarist's ingenious location of a truly mad chord. ("It's a B with a bit of a 7th and then into a 4th," he says of his rapid fretwork.)

Damon twigs the XTC connection straight away: "Do you know that song Statue Of Liberty?" On subsequent run-throughs of the song, he will make high-pitched clucking noises in certain parts, like Andy Partridge circa 1977. He also announces that he wants a Farfisa organ on it.

Graham's new hook is now the song's intro. He also has a spidery, chord-picking part that may become the verse. Thirdly, there's a scratchy part like a muted chicken that could be an ideal middle section. "That line's going to end on 'you'," says Damon, playing it through once more. Meanwhile, Dave is left alone with Street to organise an appropriate drum sound, and the other members of the band repair to the eating quarters to watch MTV and VH1.

In his sawn-off shorts, the guy perched on the arm of the settee with the bass has been virtually ignored in all the excitement, but now, on the song's tenth or eleventh run-through, Damon starts to focus in on Alex. He watches the fingers, not the face. "Good, Alex," he will say. Or: (wincing) silence.

Alex James' bass guitar style has never owed much to root notes or bass-drum symbiosis, both of which he finds stifling. The last Blur member to join, he was from day one (the first single, She's So High) playing proto-McCartneyesque lines. If allowed, he would play bass like a lead guitar. This is an issue that draws good-natured comments from Street - "Oh well, Alex does love his counterpoint" - but it means that the first recording of the new song, taped before he has his bassline worked out, is an unutterable mess.

Much lampooned (he plays onstage with a series of cigarettes dangling from his mouth), Alex's bass playing can be enjoyed to the full on Bang (a 1991 single), Popscene (a 1992 single), Tracy Jacks (on Parklife) and many obscure Blur B-sides. This session has already yielded what Damon calls "Alex's best bassline in years", a song called Entertain Me, on which he waxes liquidly Rain-esque.

"You know what you might have to do, Alex?" says Damon as recording breaks up for the night. "Follow the chords and the bass drum."

"Oh no!"

It is a scorching day in early May and Damon is sunbathing on the roof of Maison Rouge. Upstairs in the smaller of the two studios, the decor embraces the right kind of foliage (isn't that a palm tree?) and snippets from various tabloids cover the door-frame. "BLUR: BIRDS, BOOZE AND BRAWLS."

"The Daily Star," says Alex helpfully.

A stirring backing track of trumpets and violins booms through the speakers. This is The Universal, written during the Parklife sessions as a calypso. Its reggaefied rhythms were deemed unsuitable (Graham: "It sounded like a Lilt advert.") but Alex has pushed for the song's return, as has Andy Ross, who heads Food Records and has worked closely with Blur since 1989.

Thoroughly revamped, The Universal is currently in instrumental form, requiring a vocal from Damon. The song is one of two drop-dead classics Blur have recorded for this album. A few nights ago they played MOJO the other one. It was an unmixed version of a track called He Thought Of Cars. In the ashtray gloaming of Maison Rouge Studio 1, at the end of a 10-hour day, that song seemed a masterpiece. Heard again some weeks later in its finished form, it easily justified such hyperbole. He Thought Of Cars is very special. An anguished and disturbed epic of panic on the planet - at odds with Damon's chipper mood as he urged Street to cue it up - He Thought Of Cars would make a wonderful finale for the album. Anyone used to Blur's recent work will double-take upon hearing it. As well as having a Mellotron and a white-knuckled, Duane Eddy-style guitar solo, there's a Damon vocal that doesn't sound like a Damon vocal - a stricken, groaning despatch on the subject of motorways and airports, traffic jams and technology breakdowns. Whereas the chorus of Parklife's epic was soft-centred - "This is a low, but it won't hurt you" - this year's model has been reading JG Ballard and is suffering terribly. The sound is of turmoil, of pollution, of congestion. "Everybody wants to go up into the blue," Damon sings. "But there's a 10-year queue." All the instruments sound distorted. Strange and dark, the song builds and hisses like a bad car journey on the Great West Road out to Heathrow, in poor visibility.

"Everything is going to be darker on this album," says Damon. "Full stop."

So its... Darklife?

"I know, I know."

Asked to talk about a new Blur song, Damon will almost always begin by explaining the concept behind his lyrics, whereas Graham will usually attempt to describe the music, using hesitant adjectives such as "stomp-y", "guitar-y" or, when all else fails, "Blur-y". Yet they are agreed that the new songs throw an interesting slant on the band.

"It's not a concept album," Graham will later insist, "but our last two albums have had a common thread. All the songs have been about some condition, some society, whether it be paranoia or... anything."

And this one?

"This one," he says, looking over his shoulder into the studio, "seems to be about corruption and Prozac."

The Universal is about Prozac. It has nothing to do with Steve Marriott's ditty of the same title. Cool as the Small Faces song was, the two could not be further removed. None of the members of Blur use Prozac. But they find it very interesting. A big Maison Rouge talking-point is Bernard Sumner's appearance on the BBC2 programme Prozac Diary. "Prozac's just made him feel better about his shit lyrics," scoffs Damon. "That's all it's done for him."

Damon also cites a BBC1 documentary about Prozac-prescribing doctors in the States. He claims there is a doctor in Wichita who put 90 per cent of the population on Prozac. "It's like a brand-name to them," Damon says. "Like Coke or McDonalds." And this is the premise of The Universal.

The song is set in the 21st century. The citizens are taking - or being forced to take - a mood-altering prescription drug called Universal. Blithe and happy, they trawl the karaoke bars, singing tributes to the remarkable drug as they go. The song's chorus, isolated, is optimistic: "The sun is going to shine for you." But there's a sinister edge to it: "Because there's nothing else that it can do."

There has been vexation in the Maison Rouge pool room recently that Oasis, Blur's nominal rivals in pop, have entered the singles charts at Number 1, something that Blur themselves have yet to do. Therefore, for The Universal, Blur and Street have brought out all their artillery. The look on Damon's face today is a picture. It reads: if any of you want to stake your claim as the Best Band Of The '90s, write a better song than this.

Using the John Barry-styled ballad To The End from Parklife as a launch-pad, The Universal piles on the strings (beautifully arranged and played by the Duke String Quartet, veterans of two Blur albums), boasts perfectly judged guitar-and-bass parts from Graham and Alex and - best of all - a brass theme that cocks a hat to Burt Bacharach, The Walker Brothers and The Carpenters' version of (They Long To Be) Close To You.

The duality of the lyric is humming through Damon's mind as he prepares for action ("I bet people don't get it," he worries.) More nerve-wracklingly still, the backing track is so excellent that Damon is going to have to pull off the greatest vocal of his career.

Hopping around, making last-minute adjustments to the lyric sheet, muttering, he eventually gets the nod from Street. "Better go and make a fool of myself, I suppose," he says bashfully. "Do my saddo, would-be Scott Walker."

He takes an acoustic guitar into the studio with him. It won't be recorded, but he likes to play along as he sings. He does several takes of the vocal. After each one, Street says something like, "That's great, got some good stuff there", or "Some more good lines there". Like many producers, Street's method is to record four or five different vocals and "comp" (compile) a finished article from the best lines in those vocals. It's standard practice nowadays. Except that Street is unsure about two lines, and makes Damon do take after take. Damon growls agitated. "Just once more," Street insists.

Twenty minutes later, they're still at it. "You just hate me," Damon complains. "You hate me and you hate what I do."

"That's right, mate," says Street with a grin.

"I bet you weren't like this with Morrissey. I bet you had a bit more f***ing respect."

Wound up sufficiently, Damon pulls off a great take of the entire vocal. Straight away, he double-tracks certain lines. This effect can be achieved by pressing a button, explains Alex, who is seated beside Street reading A Confederacy Of Dunces. But it sounds warmer and more natural if the singer "echoes" himself.

"Good one," says Street. "On to the next chorus."

"Karaoke," says Damon thoughtfully.

They are a funny band, Blur. One minute they play something that reminds you of the music for Steptoe And Son. The next minute, they come up with a song as beautiful as My Ship Is Coming In.

For a change of scenery, the operation has moved to Townhouse Studios in Shepherd's Bush. Blur will spend a week here, then return to Maison Rouge for one final week. The hot news today is that Ken Livingstone MP came in this morning to record his voiceover for Ernold Same. Requesting a media-free environment, he drank a cup of tea, breezed through his vocal like a professional and left on good terms. He said Ernold Same reminded him of John Major. Typically, Street made him do three takes.

Changes have been made to Ernold. The sound of an indoor swimming-pool has been superseded by traffic noise, recorded by dangling a microphone out into nearby Goldhawk Road. Then: it's Ken. "Ernold Same awoke from the same dream..."

"God, listen to that voice," says Damon, who is lying on the floor. Alex, nearing the end of A Confederacy Of Dunces, grins. "Doesn't it make you want to commit suicide?"

Street fiddles with the faders, bringing up the banjo and the strings, when suddenly, for the briefest of moments, he has two vocals going at once. It's Ken Livingstone in wall-to-wall nasal stereo. Damon roars with laughter. "Yes! Get it again! We've got to have that!" They decide that, about halfway through, Livingstone will separate into two channels. The tedium will be unbound.

"I don't think we'll bother with the TV track," says Street and everyone laughs. (At the mixing stage, bands usually do a separate instrumental mix of the songs they intend to release as singles. These are known as TV tracks. The bands mime to them on Top Of The Pops, while the singer sings live over the track.)

"He did say, Don't go releasing this as a single," Damon pipes up.

Just as the mix is nearing completion (the process generally takes eight hours for Street to be happy), Damon announces that he wants to add something to the traffic noise at the beginning. He goes out of the studio and turns left into Goldhawk Road. The microphone is still dangling from the studio window. "OK," he says. Then, mimicking a terrible old drunk, he shouts incomprehensible oaths and bangs on the metal grille of a nearby off-license. Ernold Same is now finished.

The XTC song now has lyrics and a title. Blur are back in Maison Rouge, on the home straight. The song is called It Could Be You.

Around the country, plans are hotting up for VE Day celebrations. Winston Churchill's family have flogged some of the great orator's key documents to the nation, and been controversially reimbursed by Lottery cash. It Could Be You is an acid-tongued commentary on Britain's crazier tabloid infatuations. "Ch-Ch-Ch-Churchill," it begins, "got his Lucky Number..." There are also namechecks for The Beatles, Telly Addicts and The Likely Lads. That is, until Damon has a re-think and removes the Beatles reference. (It was a bit too glib.)

"The words that are around at the moment," he says, "the words that are out there to be grabbed are all... You Could Be Lucky. You Gotta Get In It To Win It. You Gotta Drink To Think. You gotta... you know. I'm thinking of having a scratchcard on the first 10,000 copies of the album. Scratch it off and win something, I think we're at the stage now where we can put a gratuitous gimmick on the front of the album."

But check the competition. Chas N' Dave's Street Party has moved from 13 to three in the album charts. VE Day is upon us. Britain is getting ready to wave its one big collective plastic Union Jack. Several alterations will be made to the lyrics of It Could Be You before Damon is satisfied with their acuity.

"And I want harmonies on the end," he adds, "you know, like Come Up And See Me, Make Me Smile by Cockney Rebel? Graham can do them."

Meanwhile, Ken Livingstone has babbled to the Melody Maker about Ernold Same. The PR machine has tentatively whirred into position. Next week Blur fly to America to begin discussions with possible American record companies; they really want success there. (They will eventually sign to Virgin.) And Graham is mindful that the day will soon loom large when everyone has to sit down and work out a tracklisting for the album: work out exactly what they've got, what it all means and what it's saying to people.

"It's quite a doom-laden album in areas," he supposes. "But it's like, we're serious about the humour. Serious about being funny. I don't blame them for it, but people do listen pretty straight-faced to our music when they first hear it. There's a kind of sinister-ness to it, which is meant to be funny, a lot of it."

Latest news! Damon has completely re-written the lyric to The Universal...