54. ‘Chemical World’

Single, released 5/7/93. Also on ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’. Produced by Stephen Street.

With the advent of ‘For Tomorrow’, Food – and their distributors EMI – were happy to proceed with the release of the delayed album. But Blur’s American record label, SBK, now voiced concern. There was, they said, no American hit on the LP. Too weary to object, Damon agreed to write one more song for this never-ending album.

Demoed by the band (under the sarcastic working title ‘Americana’) at Roundhouse Studios in Chalk Farm, ‘Chemical World’ was recorded by a stoical Stephen Street in one final album session in late February of 1993.

While the lyrics made no concession to American markets, Street strove to make ‘Chemical World’ sonically powerful. The results delighted the MD of SBK, who is said to have remarked that ‘Chemical World’ sounded “just like The Beatles”. In fact, it’s hard to discern a similarity with any Lennon & McCartney song, except “they’re putting the holes in” slightly echoes Lennon’s image of “four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” on ‘A Day In The Life’.

Something of an ecological lament, ‘Chemical World’ rails at the grime and din of city life in a series of hard-hitting images. In its two verses we meet a check-out girl nearing the end of her tether, a seedy voyeur, and the woman across the road upon whom he spies. The writing is tense, fast and coloured with disillusion (“these townies, they never speak to you”). Blur’s October tour of Britain was titled the Sugary Tea tour, after a line in the second verse.

Andy Ross, Dave Balfe’s phlegmatic lieutenant at Food, felt that SBK had been more than appeased. ‘For Tomorrow’ and ‘Chemical World’ were, he now says, “a knight in shining armour and the 7th Cavalry, respectively”. Historians would point out that, while undeniably valorous, the 7th Cavalry (under the leadership of the quixotic General Custer) were almost entirely wiped out by the Sioux and the Cheyenne in 1876 at the battle of the Little Bighorn. Even with ‘Chemical World’, Blur had not won the war. In Britain it charted at a disappointing 28.

In America, an extraordinary about-turn occurred at SBK. Now believing Blur’s original demo to be superior to Street’s recording, SBK placed the demo on US copies of ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’, defeating the object of recording a heavy rock song in the first place. In England a further recording was made – with ex-Madness producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley – which stuck true to the band’s demo. This was released on one of the CD formats of the ‘Chemical World’ single.

With profound incredulity, the band talk of SBK urging them to have ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’ re-recorded with Butch Vig. However the fabled album was now deemed complete – it had taken 15 months – and it was released on May 10, 1993. A deserved critical success, it charted at number 15 and remains an exciting (and at times superlative) album.