61. ‘Parklife’

Single, released 22/8/94. Also on ‘Parklife’, released 25/4/94. Produced by Stephen Street.

Since the final recordings for ‘Modern Life’, Damon had written prolifically and Blur began to demo new songs in groups of two and three. On August 11, ’93 – five months after ‘Chemical World’ (see 54) was wrapped up – Blur and Stephen Street met at Maison Rouge to begin the next album.

‘Parklife’ had been demoed in May with ‘Es Schmecht’ (see 58) and aired on a Mark Goodier session in July. Street, sensing a hit, tried to make the song as tight as possible. Programmed drums were preferred (Dave bashed out some live drums over the backing track to give a pleasingly vulgar effect). To simulate the sound of smashing glass at 0.05, Dave smashed some plates. The sounds of children and barking dogs (0.01-0.15) were sampled.

Graham’s now-famous opening guitar chord in as E shape raised to the 13th fret – for added tension and pitch – and it chimes out like an urchin bell over the song’s daringly cluttered first 15 seconds. The bassline (written by Damon) uses an interval of an augmented fifth – in which the standard interval of a fifth is increased by one semitone – sometimes known as the Devil’s Interval. In devoutly Christian parts of Europe in the Middle Ages, certain chords were made illegal by the Church for their unorthodox (and by association, “demonic”) sound. The cocky, swinging backing track was embellished by Graham playing sax (which he’d studied at Stanway Comp – see 51) for the first time on a Blur record.

Damon attempted the part of the Cockney narrator, but worried that his voice sounded forced and inauthentic: “I create these characters but I can’t really be them. It’s too difficult.” In the meantime, he contacted the actor Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia, Meantime) – a boyhood idol of his and Graham’s – with a view to narrating a waltz Damon had written, ‘The Debt Collector’. Having assured Daniels that lyrics existed, Damon was unable to write a word. “Then I thought, Fuck it, he could do ‘Parklife’,” says Damon. “It was that random.”

Daniels arrived at Maison Rouge looking nothing like Blur expected. In place of the sharp Mod look of Quadrophenia, there was a beard and long, straggly hair. Daniels was appearing as the vagabond, Jigger, in the musical Carousel, at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre. (He continued in Carousel for some months. When he performed ‘Parklife’ at Blur’s two nights at Shepherd’s Bush Empire the following May, he had to be transported across London by motorbike courier.) However, his speaking voice was perfect. In only three takes, he had given life to Damon’s cynical, voluable aficionado of sparkling London. By the purest of accidents – Damon’s failure to write lyrics for ‘The Debt Collector’ – Blur had a classic in the can.