Ongoing History Daily: Blur’s “Song 2”

Sometimes the best songs just materialize out of nowhere. Here’s an example of that.

Blur was working on new music at a London studio and bass player Alex James was hideously hungover and things weren’t working out. To maybe drive the headache away, drummer Dave Rowntree and guitarist Graham Coxon sat down at the two kits set up in the studio and started hammering when. James joined in, cranking his bass into overdrive in a parody of bad grunge. And then Damon Albarn started improvising nonsense lyrics.

Fifteen minutes later, the song was done. It was originally called “Whoo-Hooo,” but because it ended up as the second song on the album and was two minutes long, it ended up being called “Song 2.” And it’s been Blur’s biggest moneymaker.

More songwriting trivia with yesterday’s post on how Dave Grohl came up with “Everlong.”