This Is a Low
| "This Is a Low" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Single by Blur | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Parklife | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Released | 3 January 1995 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Format | CD | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Recorded | August 1993–January 1994 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Genre | Britpop, art rock | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Length | 5:07 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Label | Food Records | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Damon Albarn | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Stephen Street | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 16 tracks |
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"This Is a Low" is a song by English rock band Blur for their third studio album, Parklife. The song was released as a promotional single in 1995.
Originally titled “We Are the Low”, the song began life as an instrumental during the Parklife sessions. In the guitar solo, Graham Coxon played three solos, including one of him sat in front of his amp, turned up to maximum volume. According to bassist Alex James, Damon Albarn was finding it hard to write lyrics. In his autobiography, 'A Bit of a Blur', he revealed that "for Christmas I bought him a handkerchief with a map of the shipping forecast regions on it... you can never tell where the muse is going to appear." “We always found the shipping forecast soothing,” James explained. “We used to listen to it [on the American tour] to remind us of home. It’s very good for a hangover. Good cure for insomnia, too.” On 4 February 1994, the penultimate day of official recording, Albarn was due to go into hospital for a hernia operation. Pressured to come up with the lyrics, Albarn took advantage of the map James had given him. “I’d had this line – ‘And into the sea go pretty England and me’ – for a long time", Albarn revealed. "So I started at the Bay of Biscay. Back for tea. ‘Tea’ rhymes with ‘me’. And then I went ‘Hit traffic on the Dogger Bank’. ‘Bank’ – ‘rank’ – so ‘up the Thames to find a taxi rank’. And I just went round.”
The song is in the key of E major and is in 4/4 time. In total, the song contains two verses, two choruses, a guitar solo and two further choruses. The music commences with a four-chord guitar progression, before moving straight into the first verse. The music is based in the mixolydian mode, highlighted by the fact the V chord (B minor) is minor instead of major.
The song's lyrics reference a low-pressure area of weather hitting Britain. The lyrics are based on the Shipping Forecast, with references made to the various areas surrounding the country. In the lyric "sail on by with the tide", passing reference is also made to the tune Sailing By, which ends each day's broadcast of BBC Radio 4. Music writer John Harris described the lyrics as "a fantasia centred around the shipping forecast - [an] inexplicably calming institution that soundtracks the switching-off of the UK's night-lights - narrarated as if the writer was gazing at the whole of The British Isles."
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Wikipedia