Blur release new bonus track ‘Sticks and Stones’
British rockers Blur have officially released the song ‘Sticks and Stones’, a bonus track that had previously appeared on the Japanese edition of their latest LP, The Ballad of Darren.
Fitting in with the wistful and melancholy tone of its parent album, ‘Sticks and Stones’ is (at least marginally) more peppy and upbeat than most of the tracks on The Ballad of Darren. That’s just concerning the music, though: most of the lyrics to ‘Sticks and Stones’ deal with a lack of excitement, with the song carrying that same jet-lagged feel that Graham Coxon infuses into his words.
By the way, you read that right – ‘Sticks and Stones’ is a Coxon lead vocal. The guitarist had spent the first decade of Blur’s career trading off vocal lines with Damon Albarn before landing his first solo lead on ‘Red Necks’, the 1994 B-side to the ‘End of a Century’ single.
Coxon had also previously taken the lead on ‘You’re So Great’ from 1997’s Blur and ‘Coffee & TV’ from 1999’s 13, along with sharing lead vocal duties on tracks like ‘Tender’, ‘Lonesome Street’, ‘Thought I Was a Spaceman’, and ‘Y’all Doomed’.
“The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention,” Coxon explained about The Ballad of Darren before the LP’s release earlier this year. “Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job.”
‘Sticks and Stones’ was held off from the final mix of the album, along with fellow bonus tracks ‘The Rabbi’ and ‘The Swan’. Without those additions, The Ballad of Darren became the shortest-ever Blur release, clocking in at just 36 minutes.
Check out ‘Sticks and Stones’ down below.
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