35. ‘Into Another’

B-side of ‘For Tomorrow’ 12-inch and cassette- Produced by Blur and John Smith.

Originally called ‘Head’, and subsequently ‘Headist’. As ‘Headist’ it was in Blur’s live set when they played at Glastonbury in 1992. Heavily influenced by Wire, it starts with a clavinet keyboard played by Damon. In this mostly unreported, frantically-demoing chapter of Blur’s career, Damon began to play keyboards more and more. Written and recorded around January ’92, ‘Head’ was another ‘hangover’ song. Graham was drinking a bottle of vodka a night during the Rollercoaster tour (see 26, 39, 49) and the band’s mood was one of forlornness and rejection.

All the songs for their second album had now been demoed at Matrix. Optimistically, they imagined a spring 1992 release. The tracklisting included ‘Oily Water’, ‘Mace’, ‘Badgeman Brown’, ‘Popscene’, ‘Resigned’, ‘Garden Central’, ‘Hanging Over’, ‘Into Another’ (aka ‘Headist’), ‘Peach’, ‘Bone Bag’, ‘Never Clever’, ‘Coping’, ‘My Ark’ and ‘Pressure on Julian’. In retrospect, it is a safe bet that the gloomy shadows of their music would have forced people to re-evaluate Blur there and then. But Dave Balfe hated almost all of the songs. That album was never made and can now only be pieced together from b-sides.