Clover Over Dover

 As always, it's very very late at night and I feel compelled to do nothing but listen to a song for the twentieth time in a row. 

I've heard Clover Over Dover before today, only once or twice. It was alright. Clover Over Dover is the twelfth track on Blur's third album, Parklife, released 1994. Parklife is famous for the singles and This Is a Low. They're all excellent of course. I always liked London Loves and Magic America a lot. Then I heard Clover Over Dover again this morning and it suddenly "clicked". A lot of Blur is like that, for me. It takes three or four, and then "click". I love Clover Over Dover.

(1) It's got the riff, the riff is great, as always. Graham Coxon is amazing.

(2) The oh-ohs sound quite like in Villa Rosie, except Villa Rosie's entirely different otherwise. A topic for another day, certainly. Villa Rosie's also great, and Damon Albarn is the king of oh-ohs, woo-hoos, and la-la-las. 

(3) Clover Over Dover is so mellow and pretty. Everything about it is happy, except for the guitar and that other minor detail. The guitar is powerful. Even that almost sounds happy, but then at the end of the little riff it goes a bit resigned, almost.

(3) I love the "if that is that fact, then in actual fact" part, with the guitar still strumming over it, so calm and shy, as if it's not there, and the vocals so beautiful.

(4) Birds at the start, and then the strumming starts with nothing else there. They might as well really be playing on the edge of the white cliffs of Dover. As always, the image is vivid. 

(5) The lyrics are bleak if you look at them separately from the song, but with the song it just sounds so, so nice. I'm on the white cliffs of Dover, thinking it over and over. And when you push me over, don't bury me I'm not worth anything.

(6) During the writing of this, I've listened to the loop of Clover Over Dover still countless more times. If I didn't need to wake up early tomorrow and it wasn't already fearfully late, I would listen a thousand times more. It's a song about killing yourself, but it's keeping me alive.