A BLUR SONG A DAY: Clover Over Dover

One of the more melancholy Parklife offerings, Clover Over Dover starts out cheery enough. Some lovely harpsichord and seagulls in the distance. However, the lyrics soon prove to be about someone mulling jumping off the cliffs to their death. It always reminded me of the end scene in Quadrophenia when Jimmy becomes so disillusioned with his life, and Mod culture that he drives his Lambretta off the white cliffs at Beachy Head. I'm pretty sure old Jimmy jumped off the bike at the last minute, but it's still a pretty powerful moment.
The theme of suicide jumpers is carried through to Parklife's other melancholy masterpiece This Is A low, with the lyric "and the Queen, she's gone round the bend, jumped off Land's End".
I think some of the grim, darker aspects of Parklife were somewhat overshadowed by the more jubilant, upbeat sounding songs, but even the "happy" tracks have a dark undertone. Girls And Boys is about the seedy vacuous nature of places like Ibiza; Parklife is about the mundane humdrum lives we tend to lead; and Jubilee is about a misfit teenager who's not like anyone else.
In actuality, the quintessential peppy britpop album of the nineties is almost a concept album, illustrating (a little more subversively that its predecessor) that modern life is, in fact, rubbish.