Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry (Demon Detour, with Bootie Brown)
Dirty Harry (Demon Days Live, with Bootie Brown)
Dirty Harry (Escape To Plastic Beach Tour, with Bootie Brown)
Dirty Harry (Humanz Live, with Bootie Brown)
"This is one of the first songs that we wrote for ("Demon Days")."
- 2D
Of all the songs off of "Demon Days", "Dirty Harry" is the most blunt on it's criticism's of post-9/11 America. It's been stated that this was one of the first songs written, so it was probably the song that transitioned the album from being "Reject False Icons", to the socially conscious album we have now. Damon was always against the idea of war, and he was most active in stopping the soon to be never ending war on Iraq which then President, George W. Bush, started. He not only started a protest on the war at England's Hyde Park with Massive Attack's Robert "3D" Del Naja (a friend of Damon's and a huge influence on the sound of the group's first album), but made the cartoon band's next album a giant "fuck you" dedicated to everything George W. Bush ever did.
The song started out as a demo Damon recorded while on tour with Blur in 2003 called "I Need A Gun". Then the song was just a simplistic synthesizer riff and a repetitive drum machine loop which Damon chanted a repetitive falsetto hook over. The hook was "I need a gun to keep myself among. The poor people are burning in the sun. They ain't got a chance, they ain't got a chance. I need a gun cause all I do is dance." Now the exact lyrics sung on this track is a topic often debated. Most people think he's saying "harm" instead of "among", even the official book of sheet music for "Demon Days" which was written by Mike Smith says "harm". However, according to Damon, the lyric is "among" as Damon is a man of peace who doesn't condone unnecessary violence. The lyric itself honestly doesn't matter though, as basically Damon is saying as 2D that he feels so unsafe in today's fear mongered terrorist ridden world, that only the idea of having a gun on him will make him feel safe. The lyric became more powerful once Damon Albarn decided to have a children's choir sing the hook with him on the final track. The youth are no longer innocent, the "kids with guns" no longer see guns as just a cool object, but one they need in order to survive in the world.
Danger Mouse also expanded on the track's beat basing the song's beat around a complex drum sample of Lafayette Afro Rock Band's "Baba Hya" which is doubled by some of his own added percussion. This gives the song a funk induced old school hip hop edge similar to the track "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five. Jason Cox also added a subtle but enticing bass guitar riff to the track. Damon also expands upon the main synth riff in his demo, making it more complex and doubling it with a funky electric guitar soaked in "wah wah" effects. The song's instrumental also builds with the children's choir adding handclaps to the instrumental dance breaks which are anchored by a new synth riff, Damon's classic 2D falsetto and a drum machine programmed by Danger Mouse. The track so far is powerful in it's message but still fun with it's retro style dance beat. However, things are about to get darker.
The string section comes in to deliver a haunting interlude as the song's happy beat soon dissolves. The sound of kids moaning in terror is heard, and soon the beat comes back only this time it's scary. The beat is now anchored by angry guitars and bass, dissonant synths, fierce drum machines and the string section's eery melody. Leading the march is old school rapper Bootie Brown from The Pharcyde. Bootie Brown is rapping from the perspective of a soldier during the war. He makes statement of hypocrisy ("I'm a peace loving decoy ready for retaliation") saying how he was trained to kill and misses his family. The war has corrupted him, now he will put you "six feet under" if you get at him, it's "impulsive" at this point. He's seen and killed so many "the cost of life" seems "cheaper" to him. At the end he almost name checks Bush while a noisy guitar blares noisy riffs. He says, "The war is over so said the speaker with the flight suit on. Maybe to him I'm just a pawn so he can advance. Remember when we used to dance? All I want to do is dance." This right here is another case of why Gorillaz are taken less seriously just because they are cartoons. If a band like Rage Against The Machine used a line like this in a song, everyone would give them praise and it would be a constant at anti-war protests. But it went overlooked by the public, it was just a "kids band" doing a song with real kids in it that name checks the band's other big song, "Clint Eastwood", what could they have to offer? The song ends with the kids chanting "dance, singing the hook one more time and then cheering and hollering. They "feel good" for now...
The song is a live constant whenever Bootie Brown is around to play it with the band. On the "Demon Days" tours the orchestration and choirs became grander, the kids couldn't help but dance to the beat and Cass Browne does his best funk style drumming. In recent performances however the song became campier in it's approach to funk, with chunky 70's style "wah wah" guitars and a retro clavinet synthesizer that is usually reserved for sultry and soulful sex jams. In some recent performances, Damon even leaves the stage and lets the band and Jamie's visuals do most of the work (which explains why it hasn't been as much of a live staple as it has been in past tours). "Dirty Harry" is as funky as it is rockin' and it has some truths packed in it to boot.
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