－When we're playing, it's just the same.
All I can hear is the echoes of all the times we've played in the past.
－I sort of wanted to be in a band with Graham from the moment I first saw him, actually.
And he was the very first person I saw when I got to London.
He was getting out of his parents' car holding a guitar,
and I knew, that instant, that he was going to play a major part in my life.
－－Alex
We did make a promise to each other that we'd include each other
if anything was happening musically.
That's something we said to each other, so I suppose...
Even if it was just me playing the tambourine, I had the job.
－－Graham
I just assumed they'd be really similar.
You couldn't meet two more different people.
——Alex talking about Damon and Graham
We were about 20, 21 , you know.
Part of you's certain and part of you's completely unsure.
——Damon
They live on the edge, they come from outer space, or is it Colchester?
They are a four-letter word. That word is Blur.
Not one music editor thought it was worth
even having a look at our new record.
That was sort of...up shit creek.
But we did have a paddle, and we kept on paddling.
——Alex talking about ‘ Modern Life is Rubbish ‘
Whether the audience liked it or not, I didn't particularly care.
I was already in a nice little fuzzy world.
So that was sort of how I used to protect my feelings.
——Graham talking about drinking
What's Beetlebum about?
If it's common knowledge, I don't need to talk about it, do I?
——Damon
No Distance...
It became pretty 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. I... That... You know… That sort of thing makes me fall in love with him all over again, in a way. That, "Crikey. He is actually like me, he just does it in a different way."
— — Graham talking about Damon in <13>
When they were collaborating well, it was better than ever, on that record.
Like, Tender is probably their most collaborative ever tune.
Graham wrote one bit, Damon wrote another.
——Alex talking about Damon and Graham
I can't quite believe
what an important song that is, now, you know?
——Damon talking about <Tender>
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.
I suppose Damon was always pretty good about being a man about it,
- if you know what I mean. - Yeah.
Like, "All right, let's..." you know,
he's very good at putting anything of that about himself aside.
You know, we were all going through things, but I just showed it more.
- It just always... - Your emotion?
..flying out of me, but Damon would always be able to...
I don't know whether he buried it or whether he was able to just put it over there,
because he had something to get on with.
"This is the fucking job."
But I was just a bit more of a...
Dramarama.
— Graham
It no longer seemed to be that important any more, you know?
Purely because I'd just seen the world from many perspectives,
and realised that, you know,
this little island is,
which I love so deeply,
is, in fact, a little island in the northern hemisphere.
---- Damon
I didn't know what the hell to do. I got married during Think Tank,
and everything changes then.
That was kind of the end of rock and roll, really,
when you get married.
It's the start of something else.
——Alex
They were singing, "Oh, my baby"
that bit that I sort of dreamt one morning,
in half-sleep,
and sort of wrote down,
and in the studio, said, "I've got a bit that'll fit with that song, Damon"
and that was my little bit in that song.
But to have that sung back like that by thousands of people
was really unbelievable.
——Graham
I think something changed forever during Tender.
——Alex
Playing Glastonbury this year was
as beautiful a memory as I'll ever have.
And as a kind of, sort of, healing moment,
I feel very, very privileged to have been able to participate in it.
It was beautiful.
－－Damon talking about Glastonbury on 6.28, 2009
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.
I've got lots of jobs, but that definitely wasn't one of them,
being in Blur, doing those gigs.
It didn't feel like work, it felt like play. It felt like it did at the very beginning.
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 than 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.
We've made mistakes, like everybody else has made.
And I just wanted to show the best of Blur.
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.
——Damon
