Damon Albarn admits of contribution to War Child’s 1995 ‘Help’ album: “I don’t really understand what I was doing”
Damon Albarn has admitted that he’s unsure “what I was doing” on the original War Child compilation, Help, in 1995.
The 1995 compilation saw the biggest artists in Britain and Ireland come together for a greater good, raising more than £1.25 million for children affected by the Bosnian War.
In addition to Blur contributing, the record also included Oasis, Paul McCartney, Radiohead, Portishead, Manic Street Preachers, Massive Attack, and Suede.
For the record, Blur recorded ‘Eine kleine Lift Musik’, and now, during a new interview with Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music 1, Albarn has reflected, “I look back and I don’t really understand what I was doing. We did some sort of weird kind of obscure music. It’s like an instrumental. But I think that song was a song I just didn’t finish properly.”
Albarn has again joined forces with War Child for Help (2), creating the new song ‘Flags‘ with Grian Chatten and Kae Tempest, which he is much more proud of than his previous contribution for the charitable initiative.
He told Wilkinson, “Anyway, this time it’s, you know, I had a fantastic time. And actually wrote a song and we all wrote it together. It was really nice. And I think there was a real sense of musicians enjoying hanging out with each other. Which obviously I’m always an advocate of.”
As well as featuring Chatten and Tempest, ‘Flags’ also saw Johnny Marr, Dave Okumu, Adrian Utley (Portishead), Gorillaz’ bassist Seye Adelekan, Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso, and a 43-piece children’s choir perform on the song.
Furthermore, backing vocals were provided by Marr, Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barat of The Libertines, Declan McKenna, Marika Hackman, Rosa Walton of Let’s Eat Grandma, English Teacher, Black Country, New Road, and Nadia Kadek.
However, according to Albarn, it was an idea from director Jonathan Glazer that provided his favourite moment from the project, sharing, “The best thing really for me was that Jonathan Glazer had employed loads of eight-year-olds to do the filming. We just met some really interesting kids there. I mean, really, really, really interesting.”
Albarn went on to say, “I don’t know how they found such an interesting set of kids”, and that he was “so impressed how smart they were”.
Alongside his latest War Child release, Gorillaz’ latest album, The Mountain, is set to arrive on February 27th. They will also head out on a UK and Ireland arena tour, as well as play a number of festivals this summer and headline Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on June 20th.
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