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  1. Tracks
  2. Gorillaz
  3. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
  4. Simplicity

TRACK

Gorillaz

Simplicity

Release date: 23rd October 2020

From Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
Spotify
More on Gorillaz

About This Track

'Simplicity' by Gorillaz is a 2020 track from the album 'Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez'. The lyrics lean into wet-weather abandon, with the narrator urging a break from conflict to go out and dance as thunder and rain fall, insisting that the sky is innocent even while visibility goes. One voice calls the action, another answers with a shrug of carefree determination, and the repeated return to dancing on the pavement keeps the focus on refusing worry in favour of motion, in the rain. The closing “Oh,” cuts the scene mid-excitement.

"Simplicity" is a track by Gorillaz, from the album Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez, released 23rd October 2020. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 20 articles about Gorillaz.

About the Artist

Gorillaz

Gorillaz

Lyrics

Simplicity

[Intro: Joan as Police Woman]

It's starting to pour

Why don't we get out in it and dance on the pavement? (Yeah)

Abandon your wars

The sky and thunder and lightning and rain are innocent

It's tipping down, I can't see

But I'm not really caring 'cause I'm dancing on the pavement

Oh, say, can you see?

The sky and thunder and lightning and heaven's open for us

[Chorus: 2-D]

Shut in, don't know, no, no, to be shut in

Don't know, not meant to be shut in

Don't know, camera, sicken, now come, you're alive, oh

It's taking me out (Simplicity)

[Verse: 2-D]

Night time and I go smooth some off

(Little bit of news)

Negative, now it's red and I

Chime in strong

(Little bit of news)

Are you ever really lost?

You cutting cardboard

Watchers waiting, we had names

We had suspects, but a boxset caught your eye

And I was forgotten, I was forgotten

I am the architect of this delusion

The burgeoning load, one billion

These are amazing times

The past is a place where rockets take off

What now, a burnished plaque

[Chorus: 2-D]

Shut in, don't know, no, not to be shut in

Don't know, not meant to be shut in

Don't know, camera, sicken, now come, you're a loss

[Outro: 2-D & Joan as Police Woman]

Simplicity

Wood pigeon, always you

(Save her, save her, save, ooh)

Ingloriously

(Save, save, saving me, oh)

I always hear you, mmm

(Me, oh)

Simplicity

(Save, save, ooh, oh)

Simplicity

(Ooh)

Simplicity

(The sky it could make it rain instead)

Simplicity

Lyrics provided by LRCLIB

View full lyrics page →

Track details

From Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez

2020
Listen
Album
Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
Gorillaz
Release year
2020
  1. —How Far?
  2. —Opium
  3. —With Love to an Ex
  4. —The Valley of the Pagans
  5. —MLS
  6. —The Lost Chord
  7. —Dead Butterflies
  8. —The Pink Phantom
  9. —Strange Timez
  10. —Pac-Man
  11. —Chalk Tablet Towers
  12. —Friday 13th
  13. —Aries
  14. —Momentary Bliss
  15. —Désolé
  16. —Simplicity
  17. —Severed Head

More from Gorillaz

Albums & EPs

The Mountain
The Mountain
2026
Cracker Island (Deluxe)
Cracker Island (Deluxe)
2023
Cracker Island
Cracker Island
2023
Meanwhile EP
Meanwhile EP
2021
Meanwhile - EP
Meanwhile - EP
2021
Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez (Deluxe)
Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez (Deluxe)
2020

Explore

More tracks by Gorillaz

  1. The MountainThe Mountain
  2. Bolly Noir
  3. CasablancaThe Mountain
  4. Casablanca (feat. Paul Simonon & Johnny Marr)The Mountain
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  5. Damascus (feat. Omar Souleyman & Yasiin Bey)The Mountain
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  6. DARE (Album Version - Edit)
  7. DARE (Album Version)
  8. DARE (Chab Remix - Radio Edit)
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Credits

Production & Engineering

Writer
Damon Albarn, Joan As Police Woman, Remi Kabaka Jr.
Producer
Gorillaz, Joan As Police Woman, Remi Kabaka Jr.
Engineer
Samuel Egglenton, Stephen Sedgwick
Bass
Damon Albarn
Guitar
Damon Albarn, Joan As Police Woman
Keyboards
Damon Albarn, Joan As Police Woman
Vocals
Damon Albarn, Joan As Police Woman
Double Bass
Joan As Police Woman
Drum Programmer
Remi Kabaka Jr.
Erhu
Joan As Police Woman
Mixing Engineer
Stephen Sedgwick
Percussion
Remi Kabaka Jr.
READ MORE ABOUT GORILLAZREAD MORE ABOUT GORILLAZREAD MORE ABOUT GORILLAZREAD MORE ABOUT GORILLAZ
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Gorillaz and their all-star cast inspire hope at Margate's Demon Dayz
Live

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“It’s been a really weird week in this country,” says Damon Albarn after ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’, and he’s not wrong; “...with a real surprise, but then an inevitable bullshit outcome.” “But this is only the beginning,” he adds. “It’s going to grow.” It’s fitting that Gorillaz chose to name today’s one-day festival after ‘Demon Days’. Released in the post-Iraq invasion early ‘00s, in an atmosphere of uncertainty and anger, it was the album where the playful mask of the cartoon side-project started to slip, revealing melancholy, slyly subversive, but ultimately uplifting depths. And it’s fitting too that they should hold it here in Thanet, where 64% of voters opted for Brexit - triggering the chaos currently taking shape on the horizon - but where the revamped Margate Dreamland has played a part in revitalising one of Britain’s oldest seaside towns, run-down for many years. ‘Uncertainty leaves room for hope’ was scrawled by Albarn on the wall of his studio during the recording of ‘Demon Days’; it’s a phrase that definitely rings true today. The clarity of the concept behind ‘Demon Days’ is missing on this year’s ‘Humanz’, which with its succession of guest spots plays more like a mixtape. But that should make it ideally suited to a live setting, and most of the album’s guests are here today; a selection of supporting attractions to amuse as we queue for candy floss or a spin on the waltzers. In the Hall by the Sea, Kilo Kish dances a dizzying line between R&B, alt-pop and musical theatre, before De La Soul stir up the Main Stage crowd with daisy-age positivity and a run through ‘A Roller Skatin' Jam Named "Saturdays"’ which couldn’t fail in this heat. Kali Uchis and Vince Staples both underwhelm slightly, Staples not helped by the usual 6pm rush to the food stalls, but back in the Hall there’s a commanding set from Little Simz, mixing light (picking up a guitar for the tender ‘Interlude’) and dark (‘Dead Body’), before a vicious ‘Bars Simzson’. There’s a tough choice next, between Kano, leaning mostly on last year’s ‘Made in the Manor’ - a brass-assisted ‘New Banger’, ‘This is England’, and the apt ‘T-Shirt Weather in the Manor’ are highlights - and Danny Brown. Both are excellent, but those who make it into a near-capacity Hall for Brown are treated to ‘Dip’,‘Grown Up’ and a frenzied ‘Ain’t It Funny’ ramping up the bass, and wild-eyed intensity, to sweat-inducing levels. As fans have wandered past street food stalls, tin can alleys and chainsaw-juggling unicyclists today, black-clad figures have been silently stalking the site, holding all-seeing-eye flags and looking like an invasion from Doctor Who. They start assembling on the Main Stage, ominously tolling bells, before removing their masks. It’s Gorillaz, and they’re soon joined by Vince Staples - and Albarn - for the rousing opener ‘Ascension’. A ‘Humanz’-heavy set follows - along with airings for the recently debuted ‘Sleeping Powder’ and the brand new ‘Garage Palace’ - but there are other early highlights in the shape of a searching ‘Last Living Souls’, and ‘Stylo’ - dedicated to the late Bobby Womack - which strikes a chord here (“Sing yourself out of depression/rise above... Electric is the love”). Grace Jones is sadly absent for ‘Charger’, and there’s no sign of Noel Gallagher either, his place on a triumphant ‘We Got The Power’ taken by one Graham Coxon, but the parade of guests still dazzles: De La Soul’s Pos for ‘Momentz’, with Maseo and Dave joining for an inevitable ‘Feel Good Inc.’ ending; Danny Brown, Coxon and Kelela for ‘Submission’ and Kilo Kish, who joins Albarn - who explains that they met for only the first time three hours before - for a stunning ‘Out of Body’. Perhaps best of all are the return of Kelela for ‘Humanz’ stand-out ‘Busted and Blue’ - that particular kind of fragile, spaced ballad Albarn does so well - a re-worked ‘Clint Eastwood’, with Kano and Little Simz trading bars in place of Del tha Funkee Homosapien, and, of course, a beaming Shaun Ryder, given a hero’s welcome for ‘DARE’. It’s hard to find much to fault about Demon Dayz, and, for the time spent here, it’s easy to forget the uncertainty that surrounds us. There’s an encore, but the words echoing in fans ears as they leave, climbing off Gorillaz’ carousel and back onto 2017’s, hanging on for dear life, are the last of the main set: “We got the power to be loving each other / No matter what happens / We've got the power to do that.”

12 Jun 2017 • 11:58 am