“Oil” (3:50) is Track 2 on Cracker Island, the eighth studio album by Gorillaz. The track appears on the album Cracker Island, which was released on February 24, 2023. Other artists involved in the project included Thundercat, Adeleye Omotayo, Tame Impala, Bootie Brown, Bad Bunny, and Beck.
Formed by English musicians Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett in 1998, Gorillaz consists of four fictional band members drawn in the likeness of comic strip characters.
Cracker Island is available from Gorillaz’s website.
About the Song
Producer Greg Kurstin, who produced Stevie’s track “Show Them the Way” (2020), sent the Gorillaz track “Oil” to Stevie. After listening to the song with her team, she told Greg, “Oh, I think this is now our new favorite song and haven’t even sung on it yet. But yes, I would love to do this.”
Stevie enjoyed working with the Gorillaz on the track. “I love [‘Oil’] so much,” Stevie told Zane Lowe in 2022. But this is the only thing I asked for. If you make a video of this, because that’s how I know about the Gorillaz is because of all their cartoon videos, I want to be in the “Oil” video. I want to be a Gorilla, and I wanna have like big false eyelashes…I wanna have blonde hair, right? So that’s what I said. This is my one ‘demand’ that I will make, so they’re doing it as we speak. I think that song is like somewhere between love and war because when it’s on like, ‘interlocking cluster bombs,’ right? And then there’s like, ‘fill it up with love’ — my favorite part. I’m like, it’s going from interlocking cluster bombs to fill it up with love, and I’m like somehow this clever songwriter…molded these two sides of this and I’m going like, is there a touch of Ukraine in here? I know, maybe, maybe not. Who knows. But [with] the whole ‘fill it up with love,’ I can still be this person. What does he say? At the end, he says, ‘But I’m not that cold, but I could forget you, but when I walk away I could forget you,’ and I’m like , well, that was kind of cold, actually. But okay because it’s what came to his head when he was writing that sentence, you know? So I learned those words and the fact that it’s called ‘Oil,’ I’m like is that water and oil? Or fire and oil? Or, you know, like ice and fire? What? Whatever it is, I can’t wait until it comes out because I’m so proud of it. Now… I was an honorary Heartbreaker, I was an honorary Foo Fighter, and now I’m an honorary Gorilla, I was so happy.”
On February 22, 2023, Stuart Harold “2-D” Pot (Damon Albarn) sent Stevie a letter, thanking her for making the track “very beautiful.”
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Lyrics
Then I put my codes in the machine
But the world I found was made
Of faulty dreams (of faulty dreams)
I was on my own there
In the psychic silence
I was looking out for
Some other kite to
Fly out of the doldrums
And recall the log
From the early database
Of your love (of your love)
Fairy-like companions
To the dark maths that catapult
Us into imagined worlds
Seems a mockery remote
Interlocking cluster bombs
Like drum and bass I thought
Close the wells of poison
Fill them up with love
I was on my own there
I was all alone
I got lost intangible
But that’s thе place you reach when
You can’t hеlp yourself anymore
And the madness comes
You’ll be falling into the
Bass and drum (bass and drum)
Fairy-like companions
To the dark maths that catapult
Us into imagined worlds
Seems a mockery remote
‘Cause I got no choice in it
And I’m not so cold
I could look you in the eye
And not recall (and not recall)
Don’t think that my heart is a sad affair
Without you
Individual actions
Change the world
Fill them up with love
(Damon Albarn/Greg Kurstin/Stephen Bruner)
Release
On Friday, Feburary 24, 2023, Warner Records (Parlophone in Europe) released Cracker Island on CD, digital streaming, vinyl and several deluxe formats available from Gorillaz’s website. The set also included a “Fact Filez,” a collector’s card with Gorillaz-style trivia about Stevie Nicks.
Musicians
Damon Albarn – vocals, electric guitar, synthesizer
Greg Kurstin – keyboards, drums, percussion, bass guitar, synthesizer
Stevie Nicks – vocals
Credits
Damon Albarn – production
Jamie Hewlett – artwork, design
Greg Kurstin – production, engineering
Remi Kabaka Jr. – production
Randy Merrill – mastering
Mark “Spike” Stent – mixing
Samuel Egglenton – engineering
Julian Burg – engineering
Matt Tuggle – engineering
Henri Davies – engineering
Joel Workman – engineering
Matt Wolach – mixing assistance
References
Nicks, S. (2022, Sep 26). Stevie Nicks. The Zane Lowe interview series. Apple Music.
