This song is an enigma. It’s one of those songs that just doesn’t know what it is, but that’s why I like it so much. I hasten to point out that there’s no particular emotional attachment or anecdotal significance at work here. I base my love of ‘The Universal’ purely on the magic of the song. I remember, as a huge Blur fan, being disappointed on the first listen of ‘The Great Escape’, the album from which the song came. I found it a little tired, coming as it did at the tail end of that whole Britpop, cockney geezer faze that the band went through. But out of all the ok moments on that album (including the heinous crime that was ‘Country House’), came this track, sparkling, head and shoulders above the rest.

And when you hear a song with the lyric: ‘When the days they seem to fall through you / well just let them go….’ Then you just know you’re hearing perfection. It gives me chills just to write the line here, but Damon Albarn’s earnest vocal, accompanied by sublime strings, transforms it into a little piece of heaven.

Blur did a lot of growing up after 'The Great Escape', producing some truly memorable and innovative music. I think 'The Universal' marked a turning point, away from the formulaic pop band that they had become, back to the splendour of ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’ (which some people hated but I thought was a wry and remarkable comment on the Britain of the early nineties) ‘The Universal’ may not really know what it is, but I know what it does to me.

Sharon Sant was born 1971 in Dorset, into a family of diverse and slightly bizarre ethnicity and is now living in Staffordshire. She has tried every career from barmaid to pottery painting, fruit and veg sales to newspaper advertising sales, insurance to pop stardom. Her finest moment up until now is having appeared on ‘This Morning’ when she was nineteen. She is currently juggling family life with an English/Creative Writing degree and still deciding what to do when she grows up. In her dreams she has written something that got made into a film. To read her story, ‘Chicken Shit’ on the showcase section of this site, click here.

© 2009 Laura Hird All rights reserved.