The Colourful Characters of Damon Albarn - Britain's Greatest Living Auteur?
Damon Albarn surely has to be one of Britain's greatest active singer-songwriters and one of the last true auteurs. As a wee young lad I was an Oasis fan and derided Blur for being a bit silly and for, well not being Oasis. But how wrong I was to do this as Blur firstly released their self-titled fifth LP and then Albarn created a new virtual band which allowed him to move out of the shadow of the restrictive Britpop label and grow wings and go on an incredible run of releasing new music every few years. In the twenty three years since Albarn has released solo work, soundtracked a Chinese opera, formed his London supergroup The Good, The Bad & The Queen, reunited Blur and continue the aforementioned Gorillaz including their most recent release, November 2020's Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez.
Albarn's ability to create a pop song are second to none with his style developing as he goes. At the beginning of his career, Albarn started writing about characters he would see or meet and last year's Twitter listening parties got me thinking: what would a Theatre play of all of Damon Albarn's characters look like? So I decided to revisit the early part of Blur's career as well as the music I'm more familiar with to come up with a short list. And it's individuals I've focused on so there's no room for overarching commentaries such as those found in Girls & Boys, Parklife and Essex Dogs. I've also ignored Country House and Charmless Man which were written about well known contemporary figures [ex-manager David Balfe for the former, Suede lead singer Brett Anderson for the latter]:
MR BRIGGS
"While on holiday never left his bed // Walked around in circles but only in his head"
About: an apathetic Liverpudlian Albarn encountered in a Greenwich bedsit, this was Blur's first song to tell a story and described by Graham Coxon's then girlfriend as "a crappy Pink Floyd demo". She had a point - with only the bare bones of a description - but that's why it only made it as a far as a B-side [and it clearly isn't about Terry Hall, but the above photo seemed the fit the lyrics best]
- from Blur's 1991 album Leisure [Special Edition]
COLIN ZEAL
"looks at his watch, he's on time again, he's so pleased with himself"
About: an imaginary man's workday life in England. It lacks detail over the exact type of character they are, not unlike the entry before it, suffice to say Colin's annoyingly perfect in every way!
"Take a drive to Primrose Hill // It's windy there and the view's so nice"
About: a young couple trying to survive the stress and strains of living together in London. This was the first of many many songs Albarn penned about London, indeed the working title for the next album Parklife was 'London'. Perhaps the song's "holding on for tomorrow" refrain also summed up where the band were with £60k of debt off the back of a disastrous US tour and a dire need for a hit single which manager Balfe knew having demanded Albarn go away and write a hit single after listening to the first play of MLIR. Albarn returned with this but alas it didn't chart highly. Nevertheless little did they know they were only a year away from huge chart success...
"You meet an old soldier & talk of the past, he fought for us in two World Wars // Says the England he knew is now no more"
About: primarily the traditions of British Sundays such as Sunday roasts and Songs of Praise. We are introduced to an army veteran in verse 2 who bemoans how these traditions are slowly ebbing away from modern life..
- all above from Blur's 1993 album Modern Life Is Rubbish
"He's a golfing fanatic but his pot is erratic // I'd love to stay here and be normal but it's just so overrated"
About: A transvestite who works in civil service, who is career driven and wants the perfect life but is torn between this and being himself and living each day as if it's the last. A hilarious song that was almost a single...
"Jubilee slouches in the settee, he's losing all will to move, watching 24hrs of rubbish"
About: a lazy 17 year old teenager - born in 1977, hence the song title - with lyrics that alarmingly concerned the practice of sniffing butane from plastic bags hence the way Albarn dismisses them as he sings.
PETER PANIC
"Hello Peter Panic you've landed on our planet, what a strange thing you are, with little pissy eyes"
About: an alien who lands on earth from outer space to save the planet, indeed a ziggy stardust figure who helps us out by giving out mind expanding drugs. Clearly indebted to Bowie, it almost made it onto the album, but in the end was a B-side.
- all above from Blur's 1994 album Parklife, Peter Panic from Parklife [Special Edition]
TOP MAN
"The terraces are swinging // He's a monkey on the roof"
About: a larger than life football supporter who loves to dish it out but ultimately cowardly goes back into the shadows.
MR ROBINSON'S QUANGO
"Dirty dealer, expensive car. Runs the buses and the Evening Star. He got a hairpiece, oh he got herpes.."
About: right wing politicians with this song muted to be based on Conservative MP Stephen Milligan who was found dead from Amyl Nitrate induced heart failure wearing female underwear. Also neatly links to quangos or non-government organisations that are still funded and influenced by them and were quite prevalent at the time.
ERNOLD SAME
"caught the same train, at the same station, sat in the same seat, with the same nasty stain, next to him the same old what's his name"
About: somebody who is caught up in the rat race and with modern life's mundanity and needs a break.
DAN ABNORMAL
"Meanie Leanie, come on down, come & entertain the town // It's Friday night & we're all bored, time's been called there is no more"
About: ostensibly an everyday bloke complete with all their strengths and weaknesses. In actuality, it's about the songwriter himself; the song title is an anagram of 'Damon Albarn'. It's tired tone and lyrics suggest Albarn is starting to have enough of the fame game, perhaps exacerbated by the media attention around Oasis v Blur (which he quite rightly didn't understand).
YUKO AND HIRO
"This is my work place and these are my people // I work with Yuko & Hiro, we work together"
About: a couple who both work for a Tokyo record company and who the band befriend whilst on tour, helping them tirelessly to look after them and meet commitments.
- all from Blur's 1995 album The Great Escape
A MAN OF ENGLAND
"I am a man of England. Will you come and play?"
About: John Dee, a medical & scientific advisor to Elizabeth I, who coined the term 'British Empire' before falling on the wrong side of her opinion. After leaving to travel abroad, upon returning he found all his property and possesions had been stolen or burnt and he was left with nothing. By now Albarn had largely moved away from 'character songs' in his new bands but this struck a chord with me, of a person who lived over 400 hundred years ago...
-from Damon Albarn's Dr Dee: An English Opera (2012)
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MR TEMBO
"is on his way up the hill, with only this song to tell you how he feels, but to get there he will need a helping hand"
About: an Elephant befriended by Albarn on a trip to India which funnily enough did actually enjoy music and singing. In response Albarn wrote this...
- from Damon Albarn's Everyday Robots (2014)
ICE CREAM MAN
"Here comes the ice-cream man, parked at the end of the road, with a swish of his magic whip, all the people in the party froze"
About: a typical policeman in contemporary HK. What he witnessed reminded Albarn of seeing news update of the Tiananmen Square massacre as a 15 year old.
- from: Blur's The Magic Whip (2015)
LADY BOSTON
"the lady is ringing, she looks from the shadows, out through the stained colours of old glass, the sorrows of slate and sugar cane are hers"
About: Lady Boston - the subject of a painting in Penrhyn Castle - whom caught Albarn's eye and moved him enough to pen this song. Again, like John Dee a real person but from a bygone era when the British Empire was 'a thing' and slavery existed..
From: The Good, The Bad & The Queen's Merrie Land (2018)
So is Albarn Britain's great living auteur? He certainly has his own style and does not stop learning writing new music and evolving his sound, something quite rare in this day and age. From writing about being in a band, then London, he branched out as he fell in and out of drugs, love and then travelling abroad to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, with each place leaving it's mark. It is a matter of opinion but I certainly can't disagree with the accolade of Britain's most consistent songwriter of the last 25 years: Parklife, The Universal, Song 2, Clint Eastwood, Feel Good Inc, Melancholy Hill, Monkey, Mr Tembo, Herculean, these are all modern day classics that will stand the test of time and will be remembered decades from now, like his heroes The Who, Bowie and Ray Davies.
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