Reunions often lead to consolidating the sound of the past, of making good on audience expectations. Doing so live on stage is easier than replicating it in the studio. For Blur it meant a powerhouse Hyde Park show, a Glastonbury headline slot and then the difficulty of tuning into their past, to the sound which still defines them. For some it is overbearing and the break-up afterwards is almost as messy as the first time. Others will ride on through because they have tapped into something which elevates their writing and style to a new level of relevancy. My Terracotta Heart feels like an odd rip for Blur to promote The Magic Whip with but, considering how all over the place that album was, maybe it is no surprise. Where Suede was the latter in the aforementioned example, Blur was the former, and it was up to their writing to keep everything together.
My Terracotta Heart is about as open a chance to hear Damon Albarn relay his feelings to guitarist Graham Coxon. Cloying is the word for it. Summertime into summertime and My Terracotta Heart relies on repetition, on following the same footsteps. A brotherly bond severed by the passing of time and those ill-fated Think Tank sessions. There is a tenderness relied on here which takes precedence over all other parts, instrumentals included. This may as well be a love letter and we are all the better for hearing it that way. Albarn lays bare this heartbreak and fear of losing a close friend a second time. Whatever the reason for the split, however, they got the band back together, sounds irrelevant when the context of My Terracotta Heart is to value their relationship above all. A sweet moment, but just not true.
Constraint is an inevitability of fame. Those true friends are few and far between, artists would reveal this time and again. For Blur it meant not speaking to each other from reunion to reunion and while this does not weaken what is likely the best bit of The Magic Whip, it does undermine the context so necessary to the song’s success. Constant doubt and the depths of their relationship laid bare here should have provided more. My Terracotta Heart is sweet but given the decades of history between them, there is a sense of wanting more than a relationship likened to fragile clay organs. Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree are relegated to keeping rhythm on this one but do an exceptional job in keeping this love letter to a fellow band member steady.
Albarn has written with such blistering poetry more about his band members than his former flames. This is not quite No Distance Left to Run but it does hold a desire to return to what once was. To claw back the relationship which defined Albarn’s life for so long. Dedicating a song to it is as close as he can get to re-establishing the permanence of it and taking listeners along for the ride feels like an unnecessary, but thoroughly appreciated, openness. A song which depends solely on the questions of loss and what we can do to establish a reunion that matters. Blur does not quite get there on The Magic Whip but its highlight, My Terracotta Heart, certainly has enough emotional bluster to make good on its tones of regret.
