The Good The Bad & The Queen - Green Fields (Parlophone)
UK release date: 2 April 2007
The third single from Damon Albarn and friends' first album with his new band, The Good The Bad And The Queen, is a version of a song originally recorded by Marianne Faithfull on her highly rated 2005 album Before The Poison under the title Last Song.
Now slotted in as part of the band's 'concept' album about London with different lyrics, namechecking the Goldhawke Road, this version inevitably suffers from comparison with the earlier one, which was such a lonely, grave recording it seemed specially written to suit Faithfull's magnificently cracked voice. Last Song remains one of Albarn's finest moments as a songwriter, which does rather beg the question why change such a tidy piece of work? Perhaps he simply couldn't let such a beautiful melody alone.
Musically this recording lacks some of the gravitas and agelessness Faithfull brought to it, with its gentle acoustic guitar picking out the tune accompanying the very personally phrased story of a relationship breaking down, where the original had a greater sense of universality. It's not horrible by any means, but for me it will always sound like a shadow of its 'former' self.
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