Blur Parklife
…Blur released their classic Britpop single ‘Parklife‘.
After signing to Food Records in March 1990, Blur had achieved a top ten hit in the UK in April 1991 with the single ‘There’s No Other Way‘, but had struggled to continue the momentum with the release of debut album ‘Leisure’ which was generally poorly received by critics.
It was during the aftermath of the disappointment of their debut album that the band began to embrace their English ideals, which would find them huge success in the UK, after touring the US. While away, the members began to appreciate their homeland and would feel homesick – these were emotions which the band began to use as inspiration for their songwriting. Their second album ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’, released in May 1993, first revealed this change in approach from the group, and laid the foundation for the sound and influence of their next album.
‘Parklife’ was the title track from the band’s third album, and became synonymous with the Britpop movement that Blur fronted with rivals Oasis. The band had played the song live on a couple of occasions before sessions began for their new album, and ‘Parklife’ was one of the first tracks the band worked on. However, in a recent interview with Uncut magazine, Blur producer Stephen Street revealed the band were far from satisfied with it when they were in the studio: “…they were thoroughly sick of it,” he said. “Damon was trying to do the vocal, but he was very unhappy with it, so they kept dismissing it, putting it to the back of the queue.”
It wasn’t until after a meeting with Phil Daniels, who’s spoken-word vocal would help to make the song famous, on a separate issue that the track came alive. Street continues: “Anyway, they’d invited Phil Daniels in to recite a poem over this one track, ‘The Debt Collector’. Both Damon and Graham were huge fans of him in Quadrophenia and Mike Leigh’s Meantime, and they were both very into their Mod culture, too – Graham particularly, has always been a very sharp-dressed man, in that ’60s sense.”
“In the end, Damon couldn’t come up with anything for ‘The Debt Collector’, so it stayed an instrumental, but we thought, why don’t we get Phil in here to do “Parklife”? So, Phil came in with a very long, straggly beard and long hair, looking nothing at all like a Mod. But within a few takes, we had it. It suddenly gave the track life again.”
At their recent Hyde Park shows, frontman Damon Albarn revealed the inspiration for the song: “”I had the idea for this song in this park,” he told the crowd. “I used to live near Kensington Church Street and I used to watch pigeons and people and all that stuff.”
The song was a huge hit after it’s release and helped to make Blur the biggest band in Britain in 1994. At the 1995 Brit Awards, it won Best British Single and Best Video. at the 1995 Brit Awards and in May 2007, NME placed it at number 41 in its list of the 50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever.
Parklife single track listings:
12″
1. Parklife
2. Supa Shoppa
3. To the End (french version)
4. Beard
CD1
1. Parklife
2. Supa Shoppa
3. Theme from an Imaginary Film
CD2
1. Parklife
2. Beard
3. To the End (french version)
Cassette
1. Parklife
2. Supa Shoppa
3. Theme from an Imaginary Film
(Live performance by Blur of Parklife with Phil Daniels on The Late Show broadcast on BBC2 in 1994)