Green Fields

"Green Fields"

Green vinyl 7" cover
Single by The Good, the Bad & the Queen
from the album
The Good, the Bad & the Queen
Released April 2, 2007
Format 7", CD, download
Recorded 2005 - 2006
Genre Alternative rock
Length 2:26
Label Parlophone, Honest Jon's
Writer(s) Damon Albarn
Producer Danger Mouse
The Good, the Bad & the Queen singles chronology
"Kingdom of Doom"
(2007)		 "Green Fields"
(2007)		 Live from SoHo
EP
(2007)
The Good, the Bad & the Queen track listing
"Three Changes"
(10)		 "Green Fields"
(11)		 "The Good, the Bad & the Queen"
(12)

"Green Fields" is the third single by British alternative rock band The Good, the Bad & the Queen. [1] "Green Fields" is also the eleventh track on the group's 2007 debut album The Good, the Bad & the Queen (see 2007 in British music).

The song was released April 2, 2007 as the band's third single in the United Kingdom.[2] The single debuted -- and peaked -- at #51 in the UK Singles Chart on April 8, substantially lower than "Kingdom of Doom" which had reached the Top 20 upon release in January.[3]

In the album's review for NME, Hamish MacBain called the song "the best thing Damon's ever written."[4] The Sun considered the song with Beatles-references, referring to the songs ability to "cast [Albarn] as a latter-day Lennon and offers wistful, woozy psychedelia as Strawberry Fields are replaced by green ones."[5]

Contents

Song background

Damon Albarn wrote the original version of the song following a night out with Blur bassist Alex James and Marianne Faithfull. That demo was recorded in a studio on Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith and Albarn gave the tape to Faithfull.[6] It was later recorded by the singer/actress with different lyrics in the verses and released on her 2005 album Before the Poison as "Last Song."[7] The demo of the song resurfaced "late in the proceedings of recording [The Good, the Bad and the Queen]" when Albarn played it for the rest of the band. The band decided to record the track and Albarn decided to "finish it by explaining how I lost this song and now it's come back to me. So it’s a song about a song."[6]

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian commented that as the album comes to a close "we find Damon Albarn reflecting on the passing of time." The reviewer explicitly described this song's lyrical beginning "years ago, somewhere on the Goldhawk Road" as more than a "reference to the west London thoroughfare whose traffic noise appears on the 1995 Blur album The Great Escape" (this London thoroughfare is the noise at the start of the song "Ernold Same" from that album). Petridis remarks that Albarn "suggests that "years ago" means the height of Britpop," especially when Albarn sings "how the world has changed."[8]

The song makes reference to a "war" and a "tidal wave"; referencing the War on Iraq and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

The song and DRM

On the day the single was released, Apple Inc. and EMI announced a new deal to end that label's use of Digital Rights Management. At the press conference, the band played a short set consisting of "Herculean" and "Nature Springs." The single for "Green Fields" became the first new release by the band to be issued without DRM. The album The Good, the Bad and the Queen was also the first album issued under the new plan. The remainder of EMI's online catalogue underwent upgrades to the same superior quality download rate (320 kbit/s) shortly thereafter.[9]

Track listings

Chart positions

"Green Fields" - UK Singles Chart
Week 1
Position
51[3]

References

  1. ^ Note that while frontman Damon Albarn has claimed that the band is officially unnamed, and that "The Good, The Bad & The Queen" was merely the name of band's first album, it should be noted that this single clearly credits the artist as "The Good, The Bad & The Queen" on the single's front cover, spine and on the disc itself.
  2. ^ "The Good, The Bad And The Queen announce new single". NME. 2007-02-20. http://www.nme.com/news/the-good-the-bad-and-the-queen/26565. Retrieved 2007-02-20. 
  3. ^ a b "UK Music Charts - The Official UK Top 75 Singles: Week of Mon 09 Apr - Yahoo! Music UK". UK Singles Chart. http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/c/uk/single_charts.html. Retrieved 2007-04-09. 
  4. ^ MacBain, Hamish (2007-01-13). "Damon Albarn finds his soul with new supergroup". NME. http://www.nme.com/reviews/the-good-the-bad-and-the-queen/8116. Retrieved 2007-03-02. 
  5. ^ Cosyns, Simon (2007-01-19). "Something For The Weekend: Damon's Brit on the side". The Sun. http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006140003-2007030065,00.html. Retrieved 2007-03-02. 
  6. ^ a b "Something For The Weekend: Track by Track". The Sun. 2007-01-19. http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006140003-2007030053,00.html. Retrieved 2007-03-02. 
  7. ^ Troussé, Stephen. "Damon Albarn - The Good, The Bad and The Queen - The Good, The Bad and The Queen - Review". Uncut. http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/damon_albarn/reviews/9237. Retrieved 2007-02-20. 
  8. ^ Petridis, Alexis (2007-01-19). "The Good, the Bad and the Queen - Pop - Guardian Unlimited Music". London: Guardian Unlimited. http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/alexispetridis/story/0,,1993419,00.html. Retrieved 2007-03-02. 
  9. ^ "Apple and EMI strike digital rights deal on music locks". NME. 2007-04-02. http://www.nme.com/news/the-good-the-bad-and-the-queen/27474. Retrieved 2007-04-05. 
  10. ^ The original demo written and recorded by Damon Albarn in 1998. Elan, Priya (2007-03-03). "Fields of Gold... and Green". NME: 9. Archived from the original on 2007-03-19. http://web.archive.org/web/20070319090425/http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/3559/nmefinalgz2.jpg. Retrieved 2007-03-01.