Blur
Out of Time

THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2003:

America was beginning its war operations against Iraq, and MTV a 'heavy rotation', a non-stop broadcast of songs about peace.

If the video of 'Imagine' by John Lennon was reigning, the new single's video (a CD with one to four tracks to promote the album) by Blur, 'Out of Time', made its appearance.

An American servicewoman during the first Gulf War (1991), in a BBC documentary (the English national TV), making that video unforgettable, especially in my mind.

MONDAY, APRIL 14, 2003:

the day the single appeared in stores: in the afternoon, after school, I bought one. On the cover, the image of two people sitting at the table with springs attached to their backs (like old-fashioned toys), a perfect image of dazed individuals who move only if driven by the propaganda of the media (back then, TV) (isn't it the same today?).

Graffiti by a certain Banksy whose existence I was unaware of.

The Blur had returned, without Graham Coxon, and Damon Albarn determined to give his take on the world situation.

'Where's the love song

that sets us free?

Too many people are down

and everything's spinning the wrong way around'.

The 9/11 attacks (2001) in New York and the (unjustified) war in Afghanistan (and then the one declared on Iraq, over the chemical weapons matter) and the insecurity in our Western world, after the dreadful images of the planes against the skyscrapers, were not far removed (and today with the war in Ukraine it's no different).

'And I don't know what love there could be:

but if we stop dreaming

God knows we'd never get rid of the clouds'.

An oppressive atmosphere back then the news of the investigations into the attacks and the war in Afghanistan, against the Taliban regime, accused of protecting the mastermind of those massacres, Osama Bin Laden, and today with the (almost) surpassed Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

'And you’ve been so busy lately

that you haven't found the time

to open your mind

and notice that the world

is spinning slowly out of time'.

The 'brainwashing' back then, and even in these recent years, and now, to lose touch with reality.

'Feel the sun on your face:

it's in a computer now,

gone into the future

and heading into space'.

Someone would say 'complete alienation', a complete detachment from reality.

'And you’ve been...': nothing more to add.

'Tell me I'm not dreaming:

but we're always out of time...

we're out of time...' and so on: how to regain control of our lives, of reality?

A universal song, that hasn't lost its ability to speak to times not much different from ours; and no one after that date (March 20, 2003) has managed, in my opinion, to speak this way like Blur did.

And after 'Think Tank', the album of 'Out of Time', they stopped being interesting: 'Magic Whip' with Graham Coxon back in the lineup lacked the same impact on the conscience; 'Think Tank' shouted to the world: 'I ain't got nothing to be scared of' ('I ain't got nothing to be scared of' from 'Ambulance') and faced it thanks to Albarn's strength. 'Magic Whip' looked at the world with a strength...a bit dampened.