Soldier Boy

Snakes And Ladders ("Soldier Boy" demo, snippet)
Soldier Boy

"Who put the chemicals in the food chain?"
- Intro to "Demon Days"

At the end of 2006 it was announced that Gorillaz were done, the project had run it's course. But then two years later to the surprise of everyone, we had a new Gorillaz track in a way. Yes, as a b-side to the 2008 Danger Mouse produced single "Poison" off of Martina Topley-Bird's then album, "The Blue Gold", a track called "Soldier Boy" was used which featured rapper Roots Manuva and our beloved cartoon heroes.

The track comes from an unused demo from the "We Are Happy Landfill" sessions for the "Demon Days" album (see "RockIt" entry for more details) called "Snakes And Ladders". The demo featured Roots Manuva rapping on top of what was a very heavy punk rock type beat with bratty Graham Coxon esque guitars and noisy synths supplied by Damon Albarn, bass by Morgon Nicholls and a combo of Cass Browne's drums and Danger Mouse's drum machine. Danger Mouse probably decided to re-make this track with Martina while making her new album due to the fact that the group of artists had all worked together on the "Demon Days" album track, "All Alone" to successful results. However, this song deserved way better than the release and production it got, because Danger Mouse stripped the track of the brilliant rhythm section of Morgon Nicholls and Cass Browne, leaving only his own drum machine and no bass. Also from the little snippet of "Snakes And Ladders" that was generously given to us from the documentary, "Bananaz", it seems that Danger Mouse cut out all of Damon Albarn's vocals which appeared to include multiple verses and a chorus chant of "SNAKES AND LADDERS! SNAKES AND LADDERS!" As for the way it was released, well I'll get to that in a bit...

"Soldier Boy" starts with a bunch of synth noise and a repetitive synth line which seems to be a substitute for what would normally be a bass line (albeit a poor one). As Martina's soulful vocals come in so does two hard hitting electric guitar riffs. The contrast between Martina's smooth voice and the harsh riff Damon plays is brilliant and Martina delivers her A game on the track. I'm not quite sure what Martina is saying in her verses but maybe she's acting as some sort of sergeant to a literal "soldier boy" at war, tying into the anti-war themes of "Demon Days". Her soulful voice glorifies the orders she's giving in a similar way to how American media and even politics do in real life, but the harsh guitars convey the truth in the matter. The "soldier boy" is at risk, but why does that matter, kill soldier boy kill! "Soldier boy, eyes open. You know what to do".

Now Roots Manuva's verse (doubled by Martina Topley-Bird's vocals which seem to echo his lines), the only vocals left from the original version of this song, obviously provided a major turning point in the "Demon Days" sessions. He seems to be singing from the perspective of the "soldier boy" as opposed to the sergeant that Martina played. He talks about taking chances by "rolling dies", he's "looking for" his "lady" home he misses back at home, all he has here is "Lady Luck". The fact is that despite how the media makes out soldiers who return to home as strong manly heroes, some never come back and die in the battle. By going to war, you are taking a major risk of never coming back to those you love. And especially at the time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were entirely pointless and fueled by greed, it must have been a harsh reality these soldiers faced to be away for that long, not knowing whether they would survive to the end of each day. He's "screwed" in each "step", and he doesn't know who to "blame". And then he says a key line, "Who put the chemicals in the food chain?" Now does that line sound familiar? Because, that's the line repeated throughout the entirety of the intro to the "Demon Days" album. Which is why it astounds me that this brilliant track didn't end up on the "Demon Days" record (I personally would have traded "DARE" to get "Snakes And Ladders" in it's place) and instead ended up being tossed away in a butchered form as a b-side.

 Now does all this mean that I don't like "Soldier Boy"? No, I actually think the song is astounding and a great fusion of soul, rap and punk rock, I just think it's a shadow of what it could have been. "Soldier Boy" is an amazing track which by itself deserved to be more than a b-side, but imagine it with vocals from Damon and with a rocking rhythm section of bass guitar and drums on it? "Soldier Boy" marks the true end of Phase 2, being what many thought for a while would be the last track we would ever hear from the band.

End Of Phase 2

Film Trailer Music

Film Trailer Music

"We put together a trailer for "Bananaz" (the Gorillaz documentary) here at Zombie Flesh Eaters (Jamie Hewlett's old animation company)... I wanted to be like the original trailer for "A Clockwork Orange" where things flash up quickly.  "Film Trailer Music" is the music that Damon came up with for the "Bananaz" trailer. But in the end, HanWay films decided to use a different trailer for general release."
- Jamie Hewlett

"Film Trailer Music" was originally made for a trailer to the Gorillaz documentary, "Bananaz", that was never released. As the quote from Jamie says up there, the trailer was meant to be a parody of the brilliant and surreal movie, "A Clockwork Orange".

Damon obviously made the song to be a tribute to the soundtrack for the movie, as it definitely recreates the vibe of the music Wendy Carlos made for it (as a sidenote this track would not be the first time Damon has attempted to satirize the beloved film. The music video for his old band Blur's song "The Universal" parodies the intro scene of the movie). The track is simple yet brings chaos from it's minimalism. The track is mainly distorted synths and synth basses along with a clanging drum machine loop. The only main differences in what seems to be a mainly instrumental loop is that it begins with a jaunty piano line which never reappears and then near the end the track slowly speeds up, devolving into chaos. The track eventually found a home as a bonus track on the Japanese version of "D-Sides". The song is a piece of short instrumental score which is intriguing to listen to, but isn't some sort of "hidden gem" in the band's catalogue.

Stop The Dams

Aluminum (Ghostigital with Damon Albarn live, 2006, "Stop The Dams" demo)
Stop The Dams

"Well we have this energy policy in Iceland, which is basically drowning the highland, the high plateau of Iceland. It's the biggest preserver of unspoiled nature of Europe. Now they are building power plants, building dams, which will drown a big portion of this land, flooding it. So we had this concert in the beginning of January (2006), with Ghostigital and Bjork and Sigur Ros, Damon Albarn, Damian Rice. And the idea was the protest against this. Being friends with Damon, we decided to do a song together to make it special. That was "Aluminum" and then we changed the title to "Stop The Dams", which is different to what we played live, it's a bit slower. And so he was putting out the new Gorillaz single ( the double A-side combo of "El Mañana" and "Kids With Guns") and said: "We should put this out as the b-side", which we did. All the proceeds go to providing information about this type of activity occurring in Iceland."
- Einar Orn Benediktsson

"Stop The Dams" is the last track released by the band themselves in Phase 2. It's a song done in collaboration with Icelandic duo Ghostigital and was originally written to be a charity single against pollution in the environment of Iceland. However it does something many charity singles don't manage to do, it touches a soul through heartfelt instrumentals and melodies without becoming overly preachy or pompous enough to become a joke. Yes, "Stop The Dams" is a fantastic and breath taking track.

Ghostigital are a fantastic duo of musicians whose mix of electronic and organic instrumentation is a perfect match for Gorillaz. The two members are producer Curver and frontman/fellow instrumentalist Einar Orn Benediktsson. While both are legends in their native land, Einar is considered to be on par with other punk rock legends like Richard Hell, Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer with his demented, off-key and often "spoken word" vocal style. Einar is respected so much in Iceland, he actually was elected a member of the Reykjavik City Council after running for a campaign with the satirical party, the Best Party. Einar is also a close friend of Damon Albarn's, with the two working on numerous projects together like the soundtrack for the movie "101 Reykjavik" which includes "Bar Beaten", the finished version of a track that started out as a Gorillaz demo, "Gor Beaten". The two have a close enough friendship, that Einar asked Damon to write a song for a benefit concert he was putting on to stop the construction of an aluminum plant in Reykjavik that would have harmed the environment.

The original version of this track seemed to have been figured out on the spot, as the early live version we got seems very improvised with the group of musicians seeming to make up how the song goes as it went along. When Damon premiered the track with Ghostigital and their group of touring musicians it took a much faster, upbeat and almost ska feel then the version the group recorded later. The trumpets come in and out while Damon sings the track in a hopeful falsetto while strumming away on his acoustic guitar over Curver's bouncy drum machine loop. The track went over so well, that Ghostigital asked Damon to record it with them as a potential single the duo could release.

The version the trio recorded was a much slower and more traditional recording that sounds nothing like tracks from either of the two group's output. The instrumental is likely mostly Einar and Curver's work with Damon only providing the main vocals and his acoustic guitar playing. This is because of the track's prevalent use of dreamy synths and organs as well as Einar's triumphant trumpet melody. Damon uses the four common "pop song" chords on this, C G Am and F, which are often used in these kind of powerful downtempo ballads. Unlike most Gorillaz tracks, there isn't a lot of drum work in it, the drums only pop up when the trumpets or organ kicks in. This is a song designed to provoke an emotion out of you, the trio want you to feel something and do something about the problems going on in Reykjavik.

Damon's vocals help drive the track's message even further into the listener's mind. The first verse opens up with: "When you're smoking tenfold in the morning, it's gonna be a cold day. When you're keeping everything inside you, it can only hurt you. Unrelated sounds. The sun will shine again. You hold it in your hands." It's up to you to do something about it, if you're so upset about it, if you're so "cold" and smoking "tenfold" to keep it "inside" you, you're hurting the world around you, therefore only hurting yourself. "You hold it in your hands", it all comes down to what you will do about it. The second verse follows this by saying: "This land is a young land let it stay that way. It's pollution only turns you into something you don't want to see in the water. A reflection of them that you receive. You don't own the sun, and the sun won't shine again. So maybe you're in love with aluminum." Let the place around you stay beautiful or "young". If Damon hasn't convinced you to do something yet he starts to speak on the terms of the selfish, saying that if you don't stop pollution in the water, you will no longer see a "reflection" of yourself in the water but it will be a "reflection" of the bad your kind has done to the water. Cause "you don't own the sun", you won't be able to re create the glow it brought on to the world, but because of all you've done (or haven't done to help) "the sun won't shine again". But hey maybe you just didn't care, maybe you wanted to see the world become broken down, "maybe you're in love with aluminum". Trumpets blaze gloriously through the chorus, it's a beautiful thing to hear.

Einar now takes control of the song's vocals, delivering a classic spoken word section done in only a way he could. The beat quiets down so that we can clearly hear what he has to say, "The cling and a clang, is the metal in my head when I walk. I heart a sort of, this tinging noise, cling clang. The cling clang, so many things happen while walking. The metal in my head clings and clangs as I walk, freaks my balance out. So the natural thought, is just clogged up, totally clogged up. I will need to unplug these dams, and make the natural flow. It sort of freaks me out, we need to unplug these dams. You cannot stop the natural flow of thought, with a cling and a clang." Einar is delivering his vocals from the perspective of someone who was once unaware of the situation. He believed what the corporations told him about the dams they were building, comparing their lies to a clanging metal blocking off his head from the reality of the situation, which is that we need to stop these companies from ruining the world we live in for their own greed. He compares the idea of getting rid of these ideas clogging his brain, with that of unplugging the dams. As he says this, Damon soulfully "oohs" in the background before delivering the ending choruses of both his verses again. The song fades out, leaving the listener to decide what to do next about the situation they presented. Ghostigital decided to change the song's name to "Stop The Dams" after finishing recording the track as they felt it fit the track better given it's new direction.

This wasn't supposed to be a Gorillaz track, it was originally supposed to be a Ghostigital single which featured Damon Albarn. However, Damon asked Ghostigital if he could use it as the b-side to the Gorillaz double single, "El Mañana"/"Kids With Guns" which the duo agreed to. In an alternate life, had Ghostigital released it themselves, I predict the track could have been an underground hit (if not a mainstream one, the song was used in a Google commercial for christ's sake). With the song's heartfelt message and astoundingly breathtaking instrumental, this song could have effected a lot of people, instead it ended up being a b-side which was overlooked by the general public (as most b-sides do), fading into obscurity. I do see why Damon decided to tack this on to the Gorillaz single last minute though. At the time, this was going to be the last thing the cartoon band released as Damon felt the concept had run it's course with Jamie trying to end the project with a movie and a music video for "El Mañana" which effectively killed off the fictional band's guitarist, Noodle. The track would take on a double meaning, not only being an environmental piece but a song that would mark a "farewell" from the project. As a tip of the hat to Ghostigital, the proceeds from the single went to benefit organizations in Iceland who are trying to stop this from happening. "Stop The Dams" marks what was supposed to be the formal ending to the Gorillaz project, as well as a tearjerking message about the environment communicated through stark vocals and soothing instrumentation.

Murdoc Is God

Murdoc Is God

"Murdoc's metal band would have been in the movie "Celebrity Harvest", had it been made. (One of the many ideas) was that Murdoc would leave Gorillaz and form a metal band."
- Jamie Hewlett

"Murdoc Is God", the second b-side to the "Dirty Harry" single, is a track written about (and most likely by) the band's bassist Murdoc Niccals. Murdoc was created to be a parody of the typical narcissistic rock star, with the tongue of Gene Simmons, the eyes of David Bowie, the overall look and language of Keith Richards and a crude mix of a bunch of other rockin' personalities to top it off. He takes himself way too seriously and believes in not only the cult religion of Satanism but the ideal of the "sex, drugs and rock n roll" lifestyle. The blog hasn't talked much about him (other than the fact that he's perhaps the leading cause of 2D's trauma and scars, physically and mentally), but in a way Murdoc represents the brains of the outfit being the one who formed the band in the band's ever expanding lore. Often times when the character isn't going on a rant for the purpose of shits and giggles, Murdoc's sentiments echo what Damon Albarn has said about the band in his own interviews.

Of all the songs I've looked at by the cartoon foursome, I had the least amount of ideas about what this song was about. The song's instrumental is done in what may be Damon's first venture into the genre of thick, hard and gothic heavy metal (with a hint of swaggering glam rock and noisy punk rock for good measure). The beat is centered around a repetitive rocking beat set by James Dring which is quickly followed by the noisy combo of distorted basses and electric guitars played by Damon Albarn (guitar) and Jason Cox (bass). The guitar sound on this track is like something I've never heard before, decked out in weird phasing almost "wah-wah" type effects while still retaining a raw and even somewhat frightening sound. And the vocals, the vocals are just a repeated chant of "Murdoc is god. Murdoc is god.  Murdoc is god. Murdoc is god. Johnny is dead." This song sounds like nothing Gorillaz have done before or since, in fact, that doesn't even sound like Damon Albarn singing. And that's when it hit me...

In the original idea for the Gorillaz movie, "Celebrity Harvest". Murdoc was going to form a new metal band after Gorillaz break up and he would eventually ditch them at Kong Studios, where they would be attacked by zombies, thus becoming zombies themselves. Damon Albarn was going to write new songs for the movie and was writing some while on tour with Blur in 2003 ("Dirty Harry" was written on this tour). When Damon came back and found out that the movie idea was scrapped, he and Jamie planned to use the songs and imagery from the movie on what was originally planned to be the band's second record, "Reject False Icons". So my theory is that this wasn't originally meant to be a Gorillaz song, this was meant to be a song Murdoc's new band played in the movie that Damon Albarn (probably excited to dip into an area of music he hadn't tried before) decided to record anyway. This would explain why Damon Albarn isn't singing in his 2D voice or even his own voice, because he is singing in the voice of one of the characters (pictured above) from Murdoc's metal band. But that leaves one more question, who is "Johnny"? That I can't tell you, but maybe he was a character from the movie we never got. The lyrics don't really matter in the long run because Murdoc wrote them about he awesome he is, you can replace Johnny's name with any other name during that section and the song will still work just the same. The song ends in a cacophony of noise, every instrument shows no restraint as if the band is coming out of your speakers to tear you in half. In the background there is a demonic choir backed up by a low mixed organ as if representing fear from those around them. The song ends in feedback and noise, there were no survivors.

"Murdoc Is God" remains a weird oddity in the Gorillaz discography and was probably never considered majorly for placement on "Reject False Icons", yet alone "Demon Days". Regardless of what the track may mean, "Murdoc Is God" remains to be an awesome track that sounds like nothing Damon Albarn has ever tried on a record.

Hongkongaton

Hongkongaton

"What's all this rubbish?"
- Jamie Hewlett, screaming at his TV circa 1997

"Hongkongaton", one of two b-sides to the "Dirty Harry" single, was a track recorded very early on during the "Reject False Icons" stages of recording (see "RockIt" entry for more details). Like many of the songs from these sessions, the song can be seen as a link between Phase 1 and Phase 2 with it's lyrical direction, organic instrumentation and dub reggae influences. The song is also only one of two Gorillaz songs to feature co-creator Jamie Hewlett on it, with his role being the guy who shoots the toy laser gun throughout the song.

The song starts with the sound of rather disturbing sounding slurping which soon transitions into Damon's showtuney ragtime piano part making the song sound like a villain's theme from some off-putting musical. In the background there are some handclaps and synthesizers which pop up to offer countermelodies. During this section, Damon offers the song's only verse which is repeated twice, "Just falling out, not making much of anything at all. But all you could hide from what's there in the past of it". Damon sings this verse through demonic distortion effects and is making a commentary on the average pop artist and their fanbase. There comes a time where every pop star starts making even worse music than they did before, "falling out" and "not making much of anything at all". Most people will jump ship at this point but their most loyal fans will stay true to them, "hiding" from their new music and only listening to their old classics, "the past of it". As the song progresses, Jason Cox's awesome bass part drops in and out along with James Dring's cool but calm drum work and a xylophone played by Damon. The rest of the song involves an army of 2D voices chanting parts of the verse in a soothing and melodic fashion like the evil hypnotizing snake from "The Jungle Book". He's mocking these pop stars and their fan base by not only singing the rest of the song in this fashion, but by being a man who once was in a world conquering pop group and yet refuses to slow down and make middle of the road garbage. He's still pushing boundaries, and nothing's gonna stop him. "HONGKONGATON" he shouts throughout the song as if it's a war cry. Gorillaz will continue to take down manufactured pop music and all those who defend it, whether it's with Damon's cutting lyricism or Jamie Hewlett's snarky drawings (or maybe he'll juts shoot you with his toy laser gun...)

"Hongkongaton" is in many ways the exact opposite of another Gorillaz song which shares half it's letters, "Hong Kong". While "Hong Kong" is a very complex symphonic track that features Damon Albarn singing a soft plea without being under the guise of any character, "Hongkongaton" is a minimal synthetic "no wave" piece which features Damon Albarn taunting and jabbing at his contemporaries all while being completely in character under the mask of 2D. "Hongkongaton" is in many ways Gorillaz anthem and theme statement as it is about what Damon and Jamie's original intentions were, to put a stop to commercial music without meaning. "Hongkongaton" would be one of the last times the duo directly attacked the industry in their songs and the results yield a brilliant and thrilling piece to listen to.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong
Hong Kong (Demon Days Live)
Hong Kong (Escape To Plastic Beach Tour)

"This is a song about your city"
- Damon Albarn to an audience at Hong Kong Asia World Arena, 2010

"Hong Kong" is a beautiful song with a message that someone like Damon Albarn would write. And by Damon Albarn, I mean the man himself and not his cartoon alter ego. Yes, this song became big when after hiding his face for so many years, he finally came out of the silhouette and into the spotlight to deliver this heartfelt song. He finally caved in and the illusion of "Gorillaz" was never the same again (but that's a topic for another entry). On "Hong Kong", we have a soft artistic symphonic piece that could easily have fit on one of Damon's solo records or even his latter day Blur record, "The Magic Whip" (an album which was made in and about the city of Hong Kong).

The song's original release was on a 2004 War Child compilation, "Help! A Day In The Life" and an official version would be released by the band on their compilation, "D-Sides". The only difference between the version is that Damon added strings into the official version to give the track a more cinematic feel. War Child being an organization which uses musicians to help charitable causes is probably what influenced Damon to write about the heartbroken city of Hong Kong. The groove is a simple mellow romp by Damon's acoustic guitar and piano backed up by Jason Cox on a light bass guitar and James Dring on subtle percussion. The main focus on this song however, is Zheng Zheng on the elegant guzheng zither, a Chinese harp. Her playing provokes so much emotion that a good half of this 7 minute epic is just her playing simple melodies to fill the gaps between Damon's verses.

Damon's vocals start with a plea to god (of course), "Lord, hear me now". But he's also asking for the attention of any of those around in a classic show tune type manner (Damon being the theatrical he is), "junk boats and English boys". The "junk boats" also refer to World War 2 imagery, back when Britain once owned Hong Kong, whose impact is still felt on Hong Kong with the "crashing" presence "super marts" all over. And to complete the WWII imagery he brings up, "electric fences and guns".  He "swallows" his message, comparing Hong Kong to a "pill" on China's "tongue", referring to the fact that the communist country controls the fair city. But while he condemns the gentrification brought into the city he also admits that "the neon lights" make him "calm".

We are now in Damon's idyllic dream, stars "begin to explode" and "all the people" in his "dream" wait for the "machine to pick the shit up" and "leave it clean". He dreams of a Hong Kong where the people are no longer in fear of their communist monarchs from China. Zheng Zheng's playing further enhances Damon's dream like state but soon he wakes up. After he has woken up, Damon calls a child to come talk to him ("Kid, hang over here") and asks him "what he's learning in school", referring to how China takes out certain things in their textbooks to paint their country in the best light possible. He then blatantly questions if China ruling Hong Kong is a good idea, "is the rise of an Eastern sun gonna be alright for everyone?" Tackling censorship again he notices that "the radio station disappears, music turning to thin air. The DJ was the last to live, she had well conditioned hair. It was beautiful but nothing really was there". "The DJ" as in many rebellious songs, is an object of the government, only playing the soft meaningless crap that they deem "safe" to hear. Damon paint the DJ as beautiful and shiny, but he sees under the surface seeing how despite it's attractive packaging, there is no substance to be found. While this can compare to the way Gorillaz have always rebelled against pop music, it more accurately portrays the shiny city of Hong Kong. It looks nice, but something's amiss underneath the surface. The song ends with Zheng Zheng's zither and Damon Albarn's piano duetting. In the last couple seconds everything drops out but Damon's piano, a melancholic ending for a melancholic song.

"Hong Kong" got it's reputation as a fan favorite from it's dazzling performances as an encore at the "Demon Days Live" showcases. Everyone is on point here and Zheng Zheng is an amazing force to watch play. The song was brought back to the stage at Gorillaz first show in Hong Kong in 2010 where the band reunited with Zheng Zheng to play a somewhat shortened, but still meaningful, version. I'm sure Gorillaz will play the song again, as it seems to be a favorite of Damon's who often plays it live in some of his acoustic sets to this day. "Hong Kong" adds another depth of commentary to the Gorillaz library and it's performances gave us the first peek behind the scenes at the men pulling the strings of the operation (for better or for worse).

Highway (Under Construction)

Highway (Under Construction)

"You And Me"

"Highway (Under Construction)", one of two b-sides to the "DARE" single, is among one of the most underrated things Damon Albarn has ever put out. The song is a personal song about Damon written in his own voice and features him getting back in touch with his roots.

The instrumental starts out just a live take of James Dring doing handclaps, foot-stomps and additional percussion, Jason Cox keeping a steady bass line and Damon singing with a clean electric guitar. The basic structure of the instrumental is very old school, done in the style of old 1920's blues, country and even earlier slave spirituals. As the song goes Damon quietly counts in "doo wop" esque backing vocals and many different kinds of keyboards. The keyboards used go through all of his many stages as an artist: experimental and noisy Brian Eno type synthesizers, his signature Britpop organ sound done with a touch of psychedelica and soul, and the song ends with a piano solo done in a classical vaudeville fashion.

Damon's first lyric states his intention: "well, I'm building a highway back, back to the heart of things. No love left to walk back, back to the heart of things". He's looking back on his life in this track, comparing his nostalgia trip to that of building a highway to keep in touch with this song's melodic roots in that of old slave spirituals. He thinks back to his days as a kid, being an outsider in his school, realizing there is "no love" he found from the people he grew up with Essex and Leytonstone. He then says, "I'm walking above and back, all our city gone wrecked. When I get it all for you, I'm gonna get it all true". He's walking through his town and remembers the wreckage it was all in before it became the gentrified suburbs it was in his teenage years. He refers directly to "you", the listener, saying he's not gonna hold back anything "for you", it's "all" gonna be "true", no detail left behind.

Following this first verse, is a classic organ solo which goes from classic Blur style to something more spacey and experimental (accompanied by synthesizers at this point, of course). Then he throws a curveball, he's not gonna let you get to close to his life, as this is a Gorillaz song after all. "It's cold in a state gone by. People holding a meaning, why?" He's saying maybe this isn't true at all, maybe it's a cold "lie", and follows this line by saying mumbled nonsense about "swimming" and "boats" ("winds and "sails" as well). He then ends the song by saying "Cause I'm old, I will say goodbye, hoping to run out on one lie. If I get a lot from you, I'll make it all come true". He think he's getting too old for the "pop music" game, and this Gorillaz album would be the last time anything he did that stayed on the "charts" for a good decade or so, making it his "goodbye" in a way. He hopes to run out on the "lie", as if saying his writing isn't who he truly he is, throwing yet another curveball to the listener. However, if he thinks your interested or "gets a lot from you", he'll "make it all come true" and come back to play tunes for the masses again. The song then becomes centered around a jaunty piano solo which gets fade out in a cloud of reverb, as if the listener is walking away. The listener is uninterested in this old British man's ramblings, leaving our guy to bang out a tune on the piano with his mates, alone and un-interfered, like he always wanted.

"Highway (Under Construction)" is in a way, Damon's goodbye, and probably wouldn't have even made it on to "Reject False Icons", even if that's what came out. Because "Highway" is not a Gorillaz song, it's Damon's song. It has his voice written all over it, sure he might be trying to do the 2D voice, but the song is too evidently Damon to pass as a Gorillaz song. This could have showed on a Blur record like "The Magic Whip" and no one would have batted an eye (and there's a strong argument that Damon is more personal in Gorillaz than Blur but "that's a whole 'nother discussion we can't fit in these kicks"). "Highway (Under Construction)" is Damon's story, it's a showcase of his method of songwriting and his usual tricks and it's one of the best things he's ever put on tape.

68 State

68 State

"Demon Detour"

"68 State", the final b-side to "Feel Good Inc.", is an instrumental track which stays in line with one of Gorillaz many traditions in each phase. The track was most likely recorded in the early "Reject False Icons" stages of the project as it seems to fill the gap of the "instrumental track" Damon had on almost every album he made up to "Demon Days".

"68 State" mainly consists of three sections: a build-up intro which features a drum machine loop and synthesizers that sound like wind passing by (all of the above done by Damon). As the intro goes on, Jason Cox's steady bass guitar comes in and Damon warms up his "wah-wah" soaked electric guitar; the second part which features the guitar duetting a new melody with Damon's organ (a staple to all of his instrumental jams) and the third part which acts as the "chorus" to the second part's "pre-chorus" which features the guitar become triumphant, offering a fierce melody accompanied by synthesizers, with the synthesizers eventually taking over. The second and third parts make up the majority of this song through their many repeats.

A lot of Gorillaz songs are about cars or traveling of some kind. Songs like "19/2000" or "Stylo" have videos of the characters driving around and "M1 A1" is named after a British highway and details the band taking the road on a journey. This song continues that tradition, and is about the band driving down a highway, presumably one called "68 State". In the background, you can hear many synthesizer effects that sound like siren, wind and other car engines. These give you the feeling of being on a road trip with the band, if the song was given a visual, I'm sure it would have been the band riding around in a tour bus maybe in like the desert or something. In a way, this song is an ancestor to the experimental instrumentals (albeit using more organic instrumentation) on the band's record, "The Fall", which details Damon's thoughts while on the band's 2010 tour in America.

"68 State" was probably cut because with the album developing more of a concept storyline about American politics and religion, a track like this no longer fit on the record (maybe it could have been an interlude placed in the middle, but even then the track would have seemed like an unneeded detour from the actual record). "68 State" is a great track which works nicely along side the other Phase 2 Gorillaz tracks while retaining the spirit of Gorillaz sound, despite the lack of any vocals from Damon himself.