Green Fields - Song Background

Song Background

Damon Albarn wrote the original version of the song following a night out with Blur bassist Alex James and Marianne Faithfull. That demo was recorded in a studio on Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith and Albarn gave the tape to Faithfull. It was later recorded by the singer/actress with different lyrics in the verses and released on her 2005 album Before the Poison as "Last Song." The demo of the song resurfaced "late in the proceedings of recording " when Albarn played it for the rest of the band. The band decided to record the track and Albarn decided to "finish it by explaining how I lost this song and now it's come back to me. So it’s a song about a song."

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian commented that as the album comes to a close "we find Damon Albarn reflecting on the passing of time." The reviewer explicitly described this song's lyrical beginning "years ago, somewhere on the Goldhawk Road" as more than a "reference to the west London thoroughfare whose traffic noise appears on the 1995 Blur album The Great Escape" (this London thoroughfare is the noise at the start of the song "Ernold Same" from that album). Petridis remarks that Albarn "suggests that "years ago" means the height of Britpop," especially when Albarn sings "how the world has changed."

The song makes reference to a "war" and a "tidal wave"; referencing the War on Iraq and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.