Caravan

Something a little different here. I quick review of a song that I've recently re-discovered. I need to get it off my chest more than anything!

 

Album Filler?

I'm sure that a lot of us have listened to albums time and time again, waiting for the good 7 or 8 songs of a 14 track album to come on, with the songs in between just seemingly being there as filler songs. I'm also quite sure that one day, for one reason or another, one of those 'filler' songs will all of a sudden stand out on the album and it'll become, in your opinion, a hidden gem. A song that isn't really mainstream, will never be a single, and will, like you thought earlier, have just been listened to as part of the album and not really a song in it's own right.

These songs tend to stand out when you are in a particular mood. The sound of the song, not always the lyrics, seem to fit perfectly with the way you are feeling. I'm talking about all sorts of songs here; happy feel good songs, sad songs, reflective songs, destructive songs, euphoric songs. Whatever it is that you are feeling at the time.

I'm 99% sure that you've all had a similar feeling/song at some point.

For me this song hit me out of the blue, it really did. I often listen to albums throughout, mostly albums that I've neglected and/or forgotten that I have. I listened to 'Think Tank' by Blur completely without any stops/starts/pauses for the first time in years. It couldn't have been a more different listen to when I originally listened to it around 9 or 10 years ago.. It was Great.

There were a couple of songs that stood out to me as I listened. But I'll mention just the one for now.

 'Caravan' being one on the reflective personal hit list. The caravan in the song can refer to many things, depending on the person. In my understanding it refers to the distancing of the wagon (caravan) that we're all a part of.

 

 

 

And for those of you who prefer a more stripped down version of the song, which in some ways is a lot better, there's this one:

 

 

 

 

 

'And when it comes, you'll feel the weight of it, the weight of it...'

I mean the 'caravan' that is referred to in the song can relate to anything that we are generally part of and maybe trying to escape from, and after the initial escape, feel the comeback or 'weight' coming down. Whether it be alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.

I believe that Albarn wrote the song about Graham Coxon who,  after a long period of strained relations in the band, was finally forced to leave. The 'weight' that the song refers to could relate to a commitment by a person, and the weight of it will be the pressure of trying to keep that commitment. In the way it was written it could be clearly linked to Coxon's alcoholism and the commitment of trying to recover. And so the caravan is also a metaphor for whatever he was lost from. The band? His friends? Society in general?

It's a very subtle song and easily missed when listening to album for the first time. Like the rest of the album, the song has electric undertones and quite simple guitar work (Coxon was the guitarist before he left, leaving Albarn to fill the gap with simpler guitar melodies and more involvement of other instruments).

So to wrap it up I think that it's fair to say that this sing is a great song, albeit rarely heard of.

 

 

Loui