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