Feel good inc tabs
Feel good inc tabs
\»Feel Good Inc.\» (featuring De La Soul) is a song from Gorillaz second studio album \»Demon Days,\» released in 2005. The song was released as the lead single on May 9, 2005, while the album was released in Japan on May 11, 2005, and on 23rd of May internationally.
Contents
Story behind the song
Gorillaz co-creator Damon Albarn recalled the involvement of producer Danger Mouse into the recording process, \»I’d heard The Grey Album, and I needed a producer, so I just rang him up. ‘Feel Good Inc.’ was one of the first things we did. It was very instinctive: when you don’t really know someone and you say, ‘Do you want to come over and try a few tracks?’ It doesn’t usually work out this well.\» [1]
Danger Mouse (real name Brian Burton) agreed, \»It was sort of a no-brainer, we were just trying things out, and the whole project kind of handled itself. We were just kind of making sure it was going to be the right fit because I had just done The Grey Album and that wasn’t anything like making the Gorillaz album. Nothing I had done really prepared me for doing this.\» [1]
The song came out from a rough demo by Damon Albarn, Danger Mouse, and the \»Demon Days\» band. There were a lot of key tracks, Cass Browne’s drums and Danger Mouse’s drum machine & handclapping, Simon Tong’s ethereal guitar lines, Albarn’s multiple acoustic guitars and the famous Morgan Nicholls’ funky bass line. Later, Damon reworked his vocals making them more solid and added new wave synthesizers. [2]
Rappers De La Soul were invited to add rap parts on a track of their choice. Posdnuos wanted to work on \»Kids With Guns,\» but Dave and Maseo insisted on the rough demo of \»Feel Good Inc.\» [2]
Damon Albarn explained the songwriting through the animated band members. These explanations are full of contradictions.
Guitarist Noodle revealed, \»I remember the beginning of the formation of ‘Feel Good. Inc.’ quite clearly. I had a beat that was a little bit ’80s, very upbeat. But maybe halfway through, my attention wandered. I played something more acoustic, just something that reminded me of the countryside. So I wrote down some keywords to help with the lyrical imagery. ‘Windmill’ was one of them. It was a trigger to symbolize a different time and also a reference to the ‘dark, satanic mills’ that William Blake wrote about in his verse of ‘Jerusalem.’ I remember that it all started when I was reading the ingredients off the back of a [potato chip] packet.\» [1]
But Noodle also admitted: \»The windmill imagery line is a representation of a note of optimism, a memory of a simpler time. Uh, like maybe, a snapshot of an older world, more innocent.\» [3]
She continued, \»I had the main tune, the bit that 2-D sings. But I’d left a big space for where a rapper would do their part. It was Danger Mouse that originally suggested De La Soul. He was good friends with them and sent them the track and they agreed to fly over. Although at first when they arrived they were just messing around, trying to make each other laugh. Fortunately, we recorded most of that, and that’s how we got the crazy-sounding laugh that you hear on the track. The whole thing worked amazingly, but most of it was an accident.\» [1]
Though, in 2010, vocalist 2-D admitted, that he was responsible for the lyrics of the song, \»Lyric wise, the first part of this came from when I was passing the wind turbines out near Palm Springs. I think I was going to the Coachella Festival and I passed, like, this huge field full of those wind turbines, farming the land. So I started really with the chorus section and you know, built it up from there.\» [4]
Bassist Murdoc Niccals recalled, \»We’d been away for a while and we needed to come back with a tune so big it’d just smash the opposition out the water. And guess what? We did! ‘Feel Good Inc’ was just a monster-sized record. Apparently, that hit is so big, it’s the only tune on this planet that can be seen from space.\» [1]
It peaked at No. 2 in the United Kingdom and No. 14 in the United States. It also topped the Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart in the U.S. for eight weeks. This is the only song in Damon Albarn’s career to reach the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also peaked in the top 10 in 17 countries.
\»Feel Good Inc.\» got Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2006. This song was also nominated for Record of the Year (lost to Green Day’s \»Boulevard of Broken Dreams\») and for Best Music Video (lost to \»Lose Control\» by Missy Elliott feat. Ciara and Fatman Scoop).
In 2010 interview with iTunes, Murdoc added, \»I saw it’s potential from the very first beat. It was like, panning for gold. Amongst the brown murky waters, I saw this track all shiny and glimmery, shining like a big rock of gold. It said, ‘Play Me, Play Me!’ and that, I knew soon as the De La Soul boys dropped their glorious rap about Motown’s and ghost towns. This one was gonna explode.\» [4]
Music videos
Official music video
The official music video was directed by Pete Candeland and Jamie Hewlett. The main theme of the video is the contrast between intellectual freedom and dumbing mass-media culture.
In the video, 2-D wants the freedom, which Noodle has on the floating island, while the other band members lay in vain. The idea of floating islands came to Jamie Hewlett from Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky. [5] De La Soul represent the \»big brother\» character watching over the town.
The floating island is chased by helicopters. This story is continued in \»El Mañana\» video, where these helicopters destroy Noodle’s island.
Live version
Gorillaz were listed to perform this song live at Grammys in 2006. Murdoc revealed his plans on this performance \»I most certainly will be at the Grammys. I’ll be blowing my own gold trumpet as loudly as possible, in the faces of as many people as I can. I’m gonna roll up in an 80-foot, blacked-out, bulletproof limo, open up the roof, and fly out using the specially designed black-metal cape I’m having made — spitting blood and fire, naturally.\» [1]
Though, in reality, Gorillaz played this song in collaboration with Madonna, who performed \»Hung Up.\»
Live at 48th Annual Grammy Awards in 2006.
Damon Albarn and other musicians performed the song live in Manchester Opera House in 2005 and in Apollo Theater in Harlem in 2006.
Live in Apollo Theater in Harlem in 2006.
Gorillaz started their first world tour in October 2010, with some preceding summer festivals, one of them was at the Glastonbury Festival in England.
Live at Glastonbury Festival, Pilton, England on June 25, 2010.
The track was a staple of the band’s live shows, often played near the end. However during the band’s 2017 \»Humanz Tour\» the song was rarely played. [2]
Live performance at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2017.
Notable covers
Vitamin String Quartet covered this song in 2011.
Leo Moracchioli made a metal cover of the song in 2015.
Postmodern Jukebox featuring Thia Megia presented cover of the song in Ella Fitzgerald’s style in 2017.
Luca Stricagnoli made an acoustic cover of the song in 2017, using a custom Triple Neck Guitar.
Gear and settings
There’s no precise information, which instruments were used during the recording, so the further description is mostly based on the live performances in 2005 and 2006.
Guitars
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn presented the acoustic guitar lines for the song. Though he didn’t specify the exact models he used during the recording, in the official video, Noodle is seen playing Taylor guitar, and Damon Albarn possesses the same one, which is Taylor Baby.
A shot from the official video of the song and cover of Spanish issue of Rolling Stone Magazine (April 2014) with Damon Albarn and his Taylor.
Also note, that for the live performances in 2005-2006, acoustic guitar parts were played by Simon Jones.
Simon Tong
Following Graham Coxon’s departure from Blur in 2002, Simon Tong was recruited as guitarist for some of the live performances. He continued the collaboration with Damon Albarn by contributing guitar lines to \»Demon Days.\»
During the years spent with Damon Albarn, he mostly used Fender Mustang.
This is a late photo of Simon Tong with Fender Mustang. During his years with Gorillaz he mostly used a green one with white pickguard.
Morgan Nicholls
Morgan Nicholls is a friend of Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett for many years and provided the inspiration for Murdoc Niccals’ name, but the character of Murdoc isn’t directly based on Morgan’s personality. Morgan Nicholls played bass guitar for the recording of the album \»Demon Days\» and played live with Gorillaz in 2005-2006. He is known as a user of 4-string Status bass.
His counterpart Murdoc Niccals admitted in MTV Cribs video, that he uses red Gibson Flying V Bass for the official video. [8]
Simon Tong preferred Fender amps, though it isn’t clear, which model was used. Also, during the live performances, Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier with Marshall cab is seen.
Amp settings
The following settings can be used for the clean electric guitar:
Also, the electric guitar is played with a notable delay effect.
Tuning
Guitars: standard tuning (E A D G B E).
Bass: standard tuning (E A D G).
Song key
The song is written in the key of E flat minor.
Techniques
Song breakdown
The song has the following structure:
The intro starts with the main bass riff, supported by the electric guitar arpeggios. At the end of every even repetition of the riff, a slide is performed. Electric guitar riff involves slides as well. These riffs are also played in verses, they stay the same almost for the entire song (though, the bass riff has a slide in every repetition).
At the end of every verse, there’s another bass riff, which is played solely, when electric guitar stops playing.
It the first chorus, the acoustic guitar comes in with barre chords, while the electric guitar plays a line consisting of power chords and guitar licks with pull-offs.
The short interlude starts with synths, then the electric and acoustic guitars come in. As it can be seen in live videos, a slide is used for the electric guitar part.
For the standpoint of used techniques, the second chorus and the third verse are basically the same as their predecessors.