Down

This b-side from first single “She’s So High” isn’t anything too remarkable. There’s a certain charm in the “aaaah”’s after the chorus, but otherwise it’s too slow and lifeless (a bit like “Wear Me Down” with a crushing hangover) to be anything other than something of a historical artefact; it’s thought to be the first ever song written by the band after changing their name from Seymour to Blur.

Nevertheless it was played at the band’s September ‘99 gig at the Electric Ballroom, which featured only b-sides (well, and “I Love Her”, if you want to be technical about it). Damon announces it as a ”nice mellow song”, and the audience hardly responds at all, either through indifference or lack of familiarity. “I think it’s from when we thought we were Spacemen 3 or something”, he quickly adds.

Tender

Described as their most graceful single since “To The End” by several magazines just before its release, “Tender” looked like a surefire number 1 hit. A passionate song about all aspects of love, from the beauty of love via loving too much to love hurting, it’s all in there along with beautiful vocals by the London Community Gospel Choir to back up both Damon (who had grown immensely as a singer) and Graham who collaborated on writing the song. And then some Lolita from Louisiana dropped her single “Baby One More Time” on an unsuspecting world and kept “Tender” from joining the chart topper camp with ”Country House” and “Beetlebum”.

I never really liked the Cornelius remix of this song, it doesn’t hang together too well, but it has one great reason for existing; in stripping back many elements from the original mix to let the song breathe it allows Damon’s harmonising with himself to jump into the spotlights. Simon & Garfunkel who? It makes you wonder why they buried those on the album/single version. The remix is a bonus track with 13’s third single ”No Distance Left To Run”.

Officially released live versions can be found on the 2 CD version of The Best Of, and the DVDs The Best Of (the video version, which has a wonderful moment where Damon nearly makes Graham crack up in laughter by coming close to spontaneously combusting from singing “oh my baby”) and No Distance Left To Run (The Making Of).

On the 2003 tour in support of Think Tank this appears to have been the most difficult song to play without Graham. Introducing it at that year’s Reading Festival, Damon told the audience that, “Graham wrote this song as well. You know the bits he sings and I want you to sing them as loudly as you possibly can. Everyone needs to sing this song.”