Green Fields

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 Faithfull with different lyrics in the verses and released on her 2005 album Before the Poison as "Last Song."^[5]

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."^[6]

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

On the day the single was released, Apple Inc. and EMI announced a new deal to end that label's use of digital rights management. At the press conference, the band played a short set consisting of "Herculean" and "Nature Springs." The single for "Green Fields" became the first new release by the band to be issued without DRM. The album The Good, the Bad & the Queen was also the first album issued under the new plan. The remainder of EMI's online catalogue underwent upgrades to the same superior quality download rate (320 kbit/s) shortly thereafter.^[7]