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.