souk eye is a gramon song
loads of early gorillaz songs can relate to both justine and graham, which damon cited as both being the main loves of his life, but after a small talk on twitter, i noticed that some people never really knew about this theory of graham being the biggest inspiration for the now now record (2018), so i thought it would be fun to gather some evidence to back up this theory, and chose one of the most obvious gramon songs on the gorillaz catalogue to show y'all.
l.a. why you're so complicated for me? twilight
the whole "now now" record takes los angeles, california, as a inspiration. meanwhile damon would come back and forth to work on the us and the uk, at the time he was recording and writing songs (we all know damon can work really fast), graham was touring in america and eventually moved to los angeles in 2019.
as you can see from this excerpts from his biography:
waiting on the planet to turn to me, dark side
this is an allusion to the fact that, as we all know, graham has violent mood swings and can change his mind really rapidly. damon, as always, puts himself as waiting for the good times to come
if loving you's a felony now then i'm a renegade, riding. trying to find tomorrow ain't easy til you dive in
at this point, they're both older, they have families, they're not each others priorities anymore. it is too late to still be waiting for that love to come, but he is still waiting in fact. there's no hope that they could be anymore than they ever were. but i guess he's still holding on for tomorrow (bad pun)
why you rolling waves over me now, it's all i need, dreaming. waiting on l.a. to come and find me, be forgiven
now we must remember the context they were in mid 2018. after the magic whip and the tour, damon and graham were mostly "on good terms," they were seen out together, but then they both had other projects to take care off. graham was working with soundtracks and damon had gorillaz, they were falling back in the list of each other's priorities. the resentment during the divorce eras are behind them at this point, but wounds like the ones they had never heal easily.
i'll be a regular guy for you, i never said i'd do that. why you looking so beautiful to me now when you so sad?
damon never really "settled down". at this time, he had a stable relationship with suzi but they were never really married and never intended to be. we all know by now that damon does not believe in monogamy and he has raised his family in non-conventional ways.
graham, in the other hand, was married with soraya (essy) and he was living mostly at home, taking care of their daughter, dorelia. but, as graham said himself, his relationship with soraya wasn't happy nor fulfilling enough, leaving him frustrated. graham had a number of affairs (some of them quite public) during his marriage to soraya, and, eventually, they got divorced.
i will always think of you. that's why i'm calling you back on my way through.
graham is featured in the now now, which i think might be the only gorillaz record he's ever been on. this part makes it explicit that damon's called graham while in l.a., so that they could rekindle and work together again.
i wanna stay with you for a long time, i want to be stone love
okay sir-20-years-of-situationship. this part shows us that damon wants graham to stay — he wants to settle down... in a way — he wants them to go back to normal where they'd see each other more often. but they know it just won't come back: they have other priorities now.
i wanna see l.a. in your eyes when i'm leaving with your love
this is where damon wraps it all up. this song express desire to rekindle a love that's been lost, a love that needs forgiveness and that makes you go beyond your reach to find each other. they are always meant to find each other — just as they are meant to leave each other. he says himself, he can't be a "regular guy", he's a renegade. he knows they both have so much history but also so much now, with their families and partners. this song doesnt show hurt in letting go of someone you love, this song shows us containment in knowing that this love exists and it will continue to exist even when you're apart.
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