No Distance Left To Run

No Distance Left to Run is one of my all time favourites. Just love the melody and the way that Damon sings. Sometimes, I'm, in a way, tided to melancholic melodies. I feel good about it, that's strange.

I finally got the documentary dvd of Blur, which also called No Distance Left to Run. I watched it twice in two days. I'm happy to see the four members getting back together again. Just as what Damon said, "all that rubbish from both sides seemed to have evaporated" and "all I can hear is the echoes of all the times we've played in the past. It's like going back to where you were born or something. It felt like that streets that you haven't walked for ages, triggering... bizarre flashes of forgotten moments."

It is amazing going back all these years. I really like quite a lot of their quotes. Kind of touched and amused by what they said. I spent some time in recording some of their quotes.



[the early days]
alex: He (graham) was getting out of his parents' car holding a guitar.

graham: My gosh, what an amazingly confident performer (damon). Gosh, what a show off.

damon: Your (graham's) shoes aren't as good as mine, mine are the proper kind.

damon: He (graham) was much more mild, whereas I just seemed to irritate a lot of people.


[the birth of BritPop]
To me, Damon's idea of British Pop is cool. Blur did raise a lot of attention for British music under the "dominance" of American culture at that time. I see this act as a kind of identity recognition process. Their songs really speak a lot about modern life.

damon: So much of our culture is sort of American culture now, and it would be... I think it's important to make a connection.

damon: Nirvana and that whole kind of disgusting movement that came over from America. I mean, Nirvana were not disgusting... but in their wake was just the most awful shit.

dave: British popular culture was being pushed aside in exchange for American.

alex: Britpop was 100% Damon Albarn's idea.

damon: But they (Oasis) put this sheen on it, and waved flags and called it Britpop.


[blur and oasis]
As what Graham said, the battle of the two bands was actually cheap. But somehow, the resentments between Damon and Noel were just too hilarious for audience to follow.

damon: If someone saw me from a house, they'd open the window and put on Oasis... we kind of seemed to manoeuvre ourselves into a position where everyone hates us, from really everybody loving us. And it's at that point that we're at our best, I think.

graham: I just found it very cheap, the whole attention that was put on it. That sort of focus, that sort of "Battle of Britpop". Working-class northerners and shandy-drinking Southerners, you know, battle it out for the number one slot. Come on, do us a favour. I love the idea of a number one, but I just wanted a really decent number one, without all the BS, you know, I want a number one that bands had when I was a teenager.

damon (years ago): I think this (award) should have been shared with Oasis.
damon (now): Oh God. What did I do that for?


[graham and damon]
Maybe it's really hard for 2 talented people to stay in the same group for a long time. Seems like it's the inevitable rule for bands. And I could understand why Graham felt so out of place at that time. I could feel his tiredness and helplessness. It might sound silly that Graham hid from Damon and Alex in the London Zoo. But, yes, cos this could be so weird and that reaction was actually normal...

graham: No Distance... it became apparent when we were listening to the lyrics of that. And again, it was a reminder at that point for me that Damon wasn't just a ruthless careerist maniac, you know, who had no feelings. He was actually flesh and blood and was hurting quite a lot, and, yeah... that sort of thing makes me fall in love with him all over again, in a way. "Crikey. He is actually like me, he just does it in a different way."

damon: I can't quite believe what an important song (Tender) that is, now, you know?

graham: It's a very difficult thing to balance. How to keep yourself in a reasonable state of mind, and still... and still do the work.

graham: There was a lot of resentfulness about the fact that I'd... And a lot of miscommunication, I think, about why I'd gone into the Priory, really. I think the group were under the impression, really, that I was being deliberately destructive, but I wasn't, I really didn't have any choice.

graham: It's like your girlfriend saying, "Look, I'm not chucking you, but I don't want to see you for a bit, and, you know..."

damon: Well, from my perspective, young man, not only did I not want to do this, but I'm doing it because I felt the commitment to us, because, you know, we're like brothers, but also, you just haven't turned up. And you didn't even tell anyone. Well, you know what? I really have had enough.

alex: Think Tank is a good record, but it wasn't the same live without Graham, and it wasn't the same dynamic.


[indie vs pop?]
alex: We're not gonna spend ages and ages... doing lots and lots of these (TV ads). Cos it's soul-destroying.

alex: Pop stardom wasn't the thing we were after.

dave: Everything about indie disappeared and indie became the new pop music.

graham: It was quite a relief that British music was suddenly being appreciated again.

graham: I didn't like being called Britpop. Or Pop, or Brit. Or PopBrit. For me, Blur is an Indie band, really.

critics: They (blur) started off as a reasonable indie band. They've become a huge teenybop band. The reverse to what the Beatles did.

graham: I think I'm in a kind of mid-life... mid pop-life crisis. Pop makes me very sick. I wrote Damon a letter, something about the music and everything being... getting a bit, "We're tired, we need a rest". I wanna make music that scares people again.

damon: It wasn't a very nice night, because Graham... He tried to jump out of a window at one fucking point.
graham: I just thought that me doing that would remind a lot of these people that there was sort of human beings involved, and it wasn't just business and backslapping.


[after all these years]
damon: purely because I'd just seen the world from many perspectives and realised that, you know, this little island is, in fact, a little island in the northern hemisphere.

graham: music is a big part of the healing process.

alex: what did you say? "we've become...?"
journalist: kind of like more of a collection of evolved individuals
alex: ...??? y-e-a-h

alex: I didn't feel any kind of bitterness towards anybody.

graham: I missed Damon quite a lot. But I started to miss the side of him that made me laugh.

graham: I knew it would make me happy to get my friends back and everything, but I really was grinning from ear to ear for days and days, it was absolutely brilliant.

damon: it didn't feel like work, it felt like play. It felt like it did at the very beginning.

graham: I think Damon is possibly closer now to when I first met him. I think we all are. I feel almost a lot more innocent now that I did during my 20s, when I just was feeling so much resentfulness and cynicism. I feel a lot more pre-mid-'90s these days.

alex: We've made mistakes, like everybody else has made. And I just wanted to show the best of Blur.

damon: At the end of the day, what we have done, which so many bands who split up didn't do, is we managed to come back, intact, and do the best gigs we've ever done. And, you know, that, for me, is what is different about us, the fact that we did that, I think is a testament to our original friendship. That was my reason for doing it in the first place.



I think this is a must-watch for all the Blur fans.