29. ‘Beachcoma’

B-side of ‘For Tomorrow’ second of two-part CD, released 26/4/93. Produced by Blur and John Smith.

Originally called ‘Hole’ (as in “sitting in a hole/going round and round” – a line that causes all members of Blur much hilarity), this was written in late 1990, just after ‘There’s No Other Way’ – a time when Blur were oblivious to Courtney Love and her band. Demoed as ‘Beachcoma’ in December 1991 (along with the unreleased ‘Seven Days’), the innocuous ‘Hole’ was rearranged as a subdued, woozy little Blur pearl. So many guitars were tracked by Graham that “I had to visually draw out a map of the song because there’s so much going on.” A typically languid Barrett-esque, late 1991 Damon vocal whispers over the delicately layered guitars. Had his lyric been better, he would have lobbied for its inclusion on ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’. Although Street would doubtless disagree, the purists among us are saying ‘Beachcoma’ boasts the most perfectly recorded drumkit of any Blur song – deep, distant cymbals, hard slaps of snare and Ringo-esque toms.