It has now been 6 years since Gorillaz released their third album, a venture into experimental cross-genre musical elements, titled ‘Plastic Beach’. The album was not the virtual band’s best selling or most critically acclaimed, but its experimental pop sound, combined with collaboration from a wide variety of artists makes it stand out as different from the rest of the band’s work. The collaborations on the album span from hip hop giants such as Snoop Dogg and Mos Def, to Swedish electronica band Little Dragon, to rock legend Lou Reed, to soul icon Bobby Womack, along with big ensemble bands such as The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and The National Orchestra for Arabic Music.

The premise of Plastic Beach is quite simple on the outside, along the literal and basic first layer of meaning: There’s an island in the middle of the ocean that has been formed because of all of the plastic that we throw into the ocean. People have gone to this island, painted over the plastic, and built a civilization on this pile of plastic, calling it ‘Plastic Beach’. Throughout the album, we meet various characters on the beach. The main character, who has several songs throughout the album, is ‘the writer’, vocalized by band member Damon Albarn. What makes the album really interesting, though, is the underlying, sometimes obvious, sometimes nuanced, hidden meaning behind each individual track and the record as a whole. Through a unified atmospheric pop sound that is alien to all of the collaborating artists as well as Gorillaz regulars Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, the band is able to convey a truly breathtaking set of feelings and attitudes toward a world that continues to become flashier on the outside and hollower on the inside. This is a primarily lyrical analysis of some of the songs on the album and an exploration of the relevance of the album in the present day.

After an intro by an orchestra and Snoop Dogg into the world of Plastic Beach, we’re given a rundown of what this place is all about, in the song ‘White Flag’. Accompanied by a breathtaking Arabic Classical intro, the first verse of this song delves into the promise of the Beach:

Look, yo, no castaway, no survivor

I ain’t lost and this ain’t shipwrecked

I feel small in this big wide world

And Mummy ain’t said “Honey, I shrunk the kids” yet

I ain’t Jesus, but I’m walking on water

There’s no bombs here, there’s no war, cuz

Here, grime artist Bashy is highlighting that this land of promise is not a place where he feels like a castaway, a survivor of a crash, or lost. The possibilities seem endless in this new world and his existence feels small. The reference to the movie ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’, which is about a scientist who accidentally shrinks his kid to the size of insects, further emphasizes his wonder at how amazing this new world is, to the point that he has to mention that no one has woken him up from this dream yet. There seems to be no possibility of war and the technological advances are so great that he is able to walk on water the way Jesus supposedly had. The optimism continues in the second verse by Kano:

Look, no feds, no stress, no rent, no superficial shit, this real flow

Where the women look hot, but the beach cold

And the speech goes like, “Hi little lady

Sex on the beach, wanna try for a baby?”

Word in the village, I’m a little bit crazy

Swagger on a hundred degrees, no A-C

Look, if heaven had a VIP

Uh, this is it: white sand, blue sea

But I don’t know who they are

And I’m damn sure they don’t know me, but I come in peace

Here, we see how easy it is in this libertarian utopia to connect to someone (no superficial shit) to the point that you can decide to start a family after your first conversation with someone (wanna try for a baby?). Although this character does not know the people of The Beach, he is unafraid of interacting with them because he has nothing but peace in his heart. The last verse is a combined effort to conclusively made the decision to stay on the Beach:

No guns! (No corps!)

Just life (Just love)

No hype (Just fun)

No ties (Just me and my mind)

Just me and my wife

(But tell me if I’m dreamin’)

(Cause I don’t wanna wake up till the evenin’)

And I don’t wanna be left sleepin’

From all the diseases that I breathe in

(Look, respect the island, no stealin’)

And don’t bring religion here, no three kings

(Integrated and we ain’t leavin’!)

(We come on a peace ting)

White Flag?

(White Flag)

This song is all about the promise that the technological age at the turn of the 21st century brought us. The thought of a utopia where it was actually possible to get along, connect with people instantly, get rid of war, live in a shared space, and have a right to privacy was possible. However, there was doubt in the minds of these dreamers. This doubt is seen in the lines ‘But tell me If I’m dreamin’/Cause I don’t wanna wake up till the evenin’/And I don’t wanna be left sleepin’/From all the diseases that I breathe in’ where both of our new visitors to Plastic Beach are wary of the promise of the land and simultaneously want to continue sleeping as long as they want (they want to be passive onlookers and be awestruck by new technology) and not die in their sleep from the diseases they breathed in (in being passive, awestruck onlookers, they let technology create a world that killed them).

The next song in the album, Rhinestone Eyes, is probably the most thematically heavy of the album. The main motif of this song are rhinestones, which are imitation or ‘fake’ diamonds. This connects to the theme of Plastic Beach in that it is something that appears to be of great value but is truly not nearly as valuable. The song begins with the following verse:

I’m a scary gargoyle on a tower

That you made with plastic power

Your rhinestone eyes are like factories far away

When the paralytic dreams that we all seem to keep

Drive on engines ’til they’re weepin’

With future pixels in factories far away

The scary gargoyle on a tower, a symbol that represents something ugly and frightening, is used to represent the image the writer sees of himself. He became this gargoyle through ‘plastic power’, which refers in part to consumerism blinding us to our image in the rest of the world (us being either the relatively rich or the Western population), and in part to the physical plastic that we consume on a massive scale and can’t dispose of. The person the writer is communicating with here is the group of people that made him this way, by surrounding him with a world where he was allowed to and encouraged to become this scary gargoyle. ‘Your rhinestone eyes’ refers to the ‘fake diamond’ eyes of this group of people. It’s key to keep in mind that this is not a conspiracy-esque point to groups like the Illuminati, but rather to the flourishing private businesses that brought a world of consumerism into the West after industrialization. This is made more clear in the next few lines, where the writer speaks about his dreams. The dreams are called ‘paralytic’ because they’re so big that they leave him awestruck and unable to move. These dreams, apparently, ‘drive on engines ‘til they’re weepin’, with future pixels in factories far away’. This refers to the dreams being powered by the items and services provided by the children being overworked under bad working conditions in far away factories. The ‘future pixels’ phrase refers to how children are the future, but they’re so insignificant to us, the consumers across the oceans, that they’re like pixels on a TV screen. In the next part of the verse, the theme gets even heavier, touching on another key problem with our Plastic Beach.

So call the mainland from the beach

All parties now washed up in bleach

The waves are rising for this time of year

And nobody knows what to do with the heat

Under sunshine pylons we’ll meet

While rain is fallin’

like rhinestones from the sky

Now the writer is referring to the ‘so what’ of the concepts in the first half of the verse. Calling the mainland from the beach refers to an attempt to improve relations with those that we have exploited and ask for their help, a point we reach only after ‘all parties’ have been washed up in bleach. This refers to the persisting tendency we see in political affairs of only forming friendships and helping other countries when we are affected by the problem in question. These problems, of course, are not limited just to labour exploitation. ‘The waves are rising for this time of year’ clearly refers to global warming. The temperatures are increasing and ‘nobody knows what to do with the heat’. Sunshine pylons in the next part of the verse refer to ‘safe spots’ that will be left when the rains falling down become too poisonous for us to live through. ‘We’ll meet’ here refers to the writer, the people who put the system there, and the people being exploited by the system, all coming together in these sunshine pylons because there will be no place left to take shelter and profits and comfort won’t matter when survival is the only concern on anyone’s mind. The second verse continues the dark themes:

I got a feeling now my heart is frozen

All the verses and the corrosion

Have been alternated in my soul

I prayed on the unmovable

Yet clinging to the atoms of rock

Seasons see adjustment, signs of change

We pick up right where we left off with the writer feeling like his heart is frozen and nothing, not the verses of songs (this song itself included) nor the corrosion of our world have had an impact on his obstinate soul. Instead, either through the interference of external influence, or through his own intellectual and moral dishonesty, the meaning of the verses of this song itself have been alternated in his soul. His own message and the damage he sees himself doing around him is unable to reach him. He prays to the unmovable but clings to the atoms of rock. This is another play on the rhinestone part of the song title. Praying on the unmovable refers to the many Gods that people of Earth pray to, who are almost always beyond the reach of humans themselves. Most of the religions that these Gods are part of preach an abstinence from a heavy reliance on the material world, in order for a better afterlife, or reincarnation as a superior being, or simply because it’s the right thing to do. And yet, the adherents of these religions are just like the non-adherents in that they cling to atoms of rock, such as rhinestones, as if they matter. This line refers not only to rocks, but consumer goods in general. ‘Seasons see adjustments, signs of change’ refers to both the climate change happening around us and gradual changes as we try to do something about exploitative labour, with policies such as fair trade. This may, however, be too late, as the rest of the second verse explains:

“I can’t see now”, she said, “Taxi”

Now that light is all I can see

This storm brings strange loyalties and skies

I’m a scary gargoyle on a tower

That you made with plastic power

Your rhinestone eyes are like factories far away

Here, the pollution has gotten so bad that there’s barely anything that is visible. After the girl that the writer is observing yells ‘Taxi’, the light of the top light on the taxi is all she can see. The storms in the midst of climate change bring strange skies and stranger loyalties (we are more loyal to our products than our environment). Beyond this physical interpretation though, this line could also be interpreted as a random consumer seeing nothing but the product in front of them, such as a Taxi, failing to see the exploitation that allowed that product to come to them. This second interpretation also compliments the third line well, with this ‘storm’ of exploitative labour bringing strange loyalties, in that we are more loyal to the money that we throw at our goods than we are to other people, who are suffering because of our desires. The first 3 lines of the first verse are repeated at the end of the second verse to give a symmetrical structure to the song and indicate an end to the writer’s introspective thoughts. The third verse is more of a final note to the listener:

Helicopters fly over the beach

Same time every day, same routine

A clear target in the summer

when skies are blue

It’s part of the noise when winter comes

It reverberates in my lungs

Nature’s corrupted

in factories far away

In the world of Plastic Beach, helicopters bring the Beach supplies. But in our world, this is akin to ships and planes of goods arriving to our markets. They’re clearly visible in the summer but simply become part of the noise in the winter. The summer and winter could be referring, here, to the good and bad sides of consumerism. When the writer thinks about the happiness his material wealth brings him, he notices the transportation of these items happening. But when he starts thinking about the negative effects of the exploitation, his concerns simply become part of the ‘noise’, a noise of all the troubles that haunt his life. Nature being corrupted refers both to environmental damage and the ‘nature of man’ being exploited, both of which happen in factories far away. This song is a huge turn away from the first 3 songs of the album, and is lyrically the darkest song of the album. The reason it is so abruptly placed in this album is that it brings us suddenly to a realization that our systems might be corrupting and causing pain to people far away. This realization tends to hit us hard when we start thinking about the movement of goods and/or climate change. The rest of the songs on the album slowly paint a picture of the negative side of Plastic Beach, but with a more nuanced and targeted approach, letting Rhinestone Eyes set the mood for us to be able to see the gray and the dark gray, rather than the black, in the rest of the songs.

For the sake of keeping this piece at a readable length, we will skip ahead to the 9th song on the album. The songs in between Rhinestone Eyes (above) and the 9th track, Some Kind of Nature (below) should be summarized, however, for context. The 5th track, ‘Stylo’, featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack is an energetic reaction to the realization of the great promises of a technological age that was foreseen in White Flag. The 6th track, Superfast Jellyfish, is about the obsession of the inhabitants of Plastic Beach with fast food, easily microwavable and ready to eat on the go. On a deeper level, however, it is criticizing the music industry and how low-depth high-frequency content that is empty of any real meaning is consumed regularly by the people of The Beach. The title is a clear critique of the average consumer, a jellyfish, that will eat up anything that it comes across, very quickly. The 7th track, Empire Ants, tackles the monotony of the working person’s life, satirically claiming that it’s a dream of each individual ‘empire ant’ to work the machine with its little feet, so that the machine can become bigger and better. The song ends on a note of doom as it claims the empire will eventually fall. The 8th song is Glitter Freeze, a song about the prospective end of Plastic Beach, beginning with a Morse code simply beeping the words ‘Plastic Beach’ and followed by lines describing an apocalyptic theme and warning the listener to not turn here, and that ‘it was the glitter freeze’, supposedly claiming something called the glitter freeze ended the civilization on the Beach (more on this below in the analysis of ‘Broken’).

This brings us to the song ‘Some Kind of Nature’, featuring Lou Reed. Lou, for the uninformed leader, is somewhat of a Rockstar, in that he set many trends and was impressively talented but never really became a mainstream icon. He is known for his deadpan style of singing. For this song, the lyrical analysis is not enough. The way that Lou Reed’s unique voice is manipulated and played with is fascinating, and highlights the creative prowess of Gorillaz in their ability to tell a story in many different ways. The voice manipulation, at times clearly taking away from the beauty of a potentially amazing song, is intentional and there to prove a point. Let’s look at the first verse:

Some kind of nature

Some kind of soul

Some kind of mixture

Some kind of goal

Some kind of majesty

Some chemical load

Some kind of metal made up from glue

Some kind of plastic I could wrap around you

The needy eat man-mades

They wear phony clothes

They sit with our picture up until they grow old

Here, Lou is commenting on what the humans of Plastic Beach have become. He appears to be an older resident of The Beach, having seen the changes to his world happen before his eyes. They used to be just ordinary people, shaped by evolution and their surroundings, but the advancements in their technology, reliance on their consumerism, and the expense at which they got access to these things, changed them. However, this is now who they are, and the most natural form in which they exist. As a result, it’s still some kind of nature, some kind of soul that they possess. The line ‘some kind of plastic I could wrap around you’ aims to show that the mortality of humans is still a theme that haunts the Plastic Beach population, as their advancements have done nothing to avoid death. This is expanded upon in the last 3 lines of the verse. The needy, the people in need o f salvation from their style of living, eat man-made food, wear phony clothes, and attempt to make their existence everlasting through photographs until they’re old and see signs of their own mortality, at which point the photographs are not enough to preserve them. The analysis of the next verse requires a listen to make sense:

Some kind of nature

Some kind of soul

Some kind of mixture

Some kind of goal

Some kind of majesty

Some chemical load

Well, me, I like plastics and digital foils

Could wrap up the sound and protect the girls

From the spiritual poison you spill at night

Like phony clothes but I really like my

The verse is identical until we get to the plastics and digital foils line. When listening to the song, it’s easy to notice a pitch change when this line comes on, perhaps indicating that the narrator is getting more and more consumed by the ideas of plastics and foils, representing immortality to him. There’s another, very easily audible, change in the next line, between ‘could wrap up the sound’ and ‘and protect the girls’, this time indicating the chaotic nature of the idea taking over all his thoughts. As a result, the narrator is breaking up his train of thought, moving from the idea of preserving sound with plastic, to protecting the girls (his daughters? His lovers?). The next line could be referring to late night news and talk shows, or the glitter freeze that will be discussed later on, leading to very different meanings but in a similar vein of protection against a harmful event. The last line indicates a complete departure from reality for the narrator, at this point making no grammatical sense whatsoever, having been consumed by his own thoughts and paranoia. This track is instrumental in setting up future doom. Having been placed right after Glitter Freeze, it also explores the themes of apocalypse and mortality in an exceedingly unsustainable world. It’s important to note that the last line of the song is ‘All we are is dust’, which brings the narrator of this song full circle to realizing that we are, have been, and always will be star dust, and therefore there is no point in contemplating our doom.

The next song, ‘On Melancholy Hill’ is the most cheerful sounding track, with pop-like synths and quiet high keys playing in the background. The content of the song, on the other hand, is quite somber, inviting reflection about emptiness, depression, and the elusive nature of love. The first verse sets the premise of the song:

Up on Melancholy Hill there’s a plastic tree

Are you here with me?

Just looking out on the day of another dream

Where you can’t get what you want but you can get me

So let’s set out to sea

‘Cause you are my medicine when you’re close to me

When you’re close to me

This is the first time that our main writer, the storyteller in Rhinestone Eyes, Empire Ants and Glitter Freeze, is trying to communicate with another character. He used the word ‘you’ in Rhinestone Eyes but only to refer to the people who ran Plastic Beach. Here, he is communicating with someone he’s intimate with, presumably a romantic partner. We begin with the image of a plastic tree on a hill named after a state of mind that’s characteristic of an existential crisis. The plastic tree is a place to sit by on the Hill, to allow the writer to look out towards the Beach. This tree represents those aspects of the material world that help us look out into the universe and into ourselves, to allow us to understand our place in the grand scheme of things and discover who we are. It could be taken to mean anything from books to telescopes. The writer then asks someone we don’t get to hear back from in this song whether they’re here with him. Based on the next few songs, we can assume this is a girl and they’re romantic partners. He’s sitting on this hill looking out on the day of another dream. This is a reference back to the dream that was prophesized in White Flag. At this point, the people of The Beach are still living in the dream of technological advancement and immense human comfort, surrounded by material objects that make everything easy. However, the next line puts a dark twist on this dream, a twist similar to the one feared by the new arrivals during White Flag: the fear of existentialism. You can’t get what you want on The Beach even though you’re surrounded by things that please you. The only way to escape the emotional emptiness of this world is to find someone to love, says the writer. ‘So let’s set out to sea’ refers to a search for meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in life, that the writer is too afraid to take on alone. The girl is his medicine, a quick fix to keep him sane during their search, when she’s close to him. This verse emphasizes the emptiness left by a material world that fulfills all of the surface desires but leaves little for the self underneath. This leads to a depression and loneliness that can only be fixed by someone that he can create an emotional connection with. The groovy melody continues as the content gets even darker in the second verse:

So call in the submarines, ‘round the world we’ll go

Does anybody know

If we’re looking out on the day of another dream?

If you can’t get what you want, then you come with me

Up on melancholy hill

Sits a manatee

Just looking out for the day, when you’re close to me

When you’re close to me

When you’re close to me

At this point, the writer is ready to embark on the journey. The world, here, refers to the unknown, whether it is the rest of the universe, the undiscovered thoughts and feelings of the writer, or an exploration of his relationship with this girl. The next two lines bring us back to the dream reference, but this time with more uncertainty. The writer is not sure whether this is another day in the dream and is asking other people whether they know. This lack of certainty is a sign that the writer is becoming immune to the material world’s comfort and is no longer in a dreamy state of wonder at everything around him, constantly being reminded of the emptiness underneath and the need to fill it. As more and more people realize the same thing, the writer calls out to them and tells them that if they also don’t find comfort in their material world and consumerism, they can come with him, as he explores the world in his submarine.

In the next line, we experience a passing of time as a manatee is now sitting on The Hill. This is odd, as manatees are sea animals and shouldn’t be able to survive above the land. This is most likely referring to a manatee that got washed up onto the hill because of all of the plastic waste produced by The Beach. As a result, it sits on the hill and ‘looks out’ for the day when the girls is close to the writer, for when that day arrives, there will be a self-awareness and a realization of the impact of the destructive and unsustainable lifestyle of Plastic Beach. Here, the ability to love acts as a catalyst to increase self awareness and embark on a journey of self discovery for our writer. In the face of a desolate, destructive world, and the emptiness he feels, love is one way out. Interesting possible references in this song include Melancholy Hill, which could refer to ‘The Hill’ from the Beatles song ‘The Fool On The Hill’, which is about a man that is thought of as a fool by the people around him but is actually the only one in that population that looks out into the world and seeks to understand the higher truths of life. This is a position that our writer ends up in at the end of this song, calling out to deaf ears to come and join him in his submarine. The submarine itself is a possible reference to the Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’, a song about a group of people that spend their life on a yellow submarine and are sufficiently fulfilled by each other’s company, requiring nothing else to make their lives worth living.

Next, we look at ‘Broken’, chronologically and thematically the next song in the album. Some time has passed since the previous song and our writer has contemplated a lot about the nature of Plastic Beach, himself, and the world outside. This is where we pick up in the first verse:

Distant stars

Come in black or red

I’ve seen their worlds

Inside my head

They connect

With the fall of man

They breathe you in

And dive as deep as they can

This song has parallel themes, referring both to the impending doom of an apocalypse that will end Plastic Beach, and the impending doom of the end of the relationship between the girl our writer was intimate with in the previous song. This could be what the black or red distant stars in the first verse is referring to, red being a colour associated with an apocalypse, and black representing the loneliness accompanied by a breakup. The writer has seen both of these scenarios inside his head. They connect with the fall of man, in that the breakup leaves him once again in a state of disorientation and fear, leading to his fall, while the apocalypse leads to the end of civilization. The last two lines are referring to the presence of these thoughts itself, their gloomy nature consuming him and suffocating him. The bridge before the chorus separates the two themes of the song:

There’s nothing you can do for them

They are the force between

When the sunlight is arising

There’s nothing you can say to him

He is without a heart

And the space has been broken

The first 3 lines refer to the apocalyptic theme. There’s nothing that can be done to save the people of The Beach. They are the force between the subsequent sunrises, a poetic way to describe the passing of days. They are the makers of their own destiny, and they have chosen the path that leads to death and destruction of themselves. The last 3 lines refer to the writer’s relationship. Perhaps because of the realization of the impending end of civilization, the writer has lost his emotional connection and the ability to love, leading to the space between the writer and the girl being broken. This leads to a feedback loop, with the writer delving deeper into feelings of doom as a result of the breakup, with the feelings of doom reinforcing the lack of emotional connection that caused the breakup in the first place. The chorus brings us back into the dual structure of the song:

It’s broken

Our love

Is broken

The obvious meaning that sticks out here is referring to the writer’s personal relationship, but ‘our love’ can also refer to the love and compassion of the society that we live in. The writer’s civilization is so consumed by its material wealth and obsession with production that the love between its inhabitants is broken. Everyone is, to everyone else, an algorithm, to be figured out and manipulated to reach specific goals. The two themes split up again, momentarily, in verse 2, before coming together at the end of the verse once more:

Is it far away in the Glitter Freeze?

Or in our eyes every time they meet?

It’s by the light of the plasma screens

We keep switched on

All through the night while we sleep

The ‘it’ in this verse is referring to the end of the world. The first line makes a reference to a previous song in the album, Glitter Freeze. That track had a post-apocalyptic theme, presumably a vision of Plastic Beach’s future imagined by the writer. The writer wonders here whether the apocalypse is far away, in the times of the Glitter Freeze as he saw in his vision, or if it’s in the meeting of the eyes of him and his now ex-lover. Then he answers his own question, again bringing the two themes into one. The destruction of civilization and the end of their relationship is in the light of the plasma screens that they leave switched on at night. The perpetual waste of energy and the resources of The Beach will lead to its downfall, and being overly attached to our technology, to the point that we’re leaving the TV on as we sleep, will lead to the end of all emotional connection with other human beings. The second bridge adds another layer of the writer’s personal story to the song:

There’s nothing you can do for them

They are the force between

When the sunlight is arising

There’s nothing you can say to her

I am without a heart

And the space has been broken

With this bridge, the first 3 lines are still the same but the last 4 have changed. This time, the writer says ‘I’ instead of ‘he’, recognizing the problem is within him. The change in this part of the bridge signifies that this aspect of being ‘broken’ is more important to the writer than the futility he feels for the general population. He feels as if him not saving the world is acceptable but him not saving his own life is far worse.

The next song details the relationship of the two characters, for the first time zooming in on human struggle without any focus on the background issues of The Beach. ‘To Binge’ is possibly the most sonically beautiful song on the album, described by band member Murdoc Niccals as ‘a Hawaiian version of melancholy’. The song is an expression of the feelings of the two individuals we became familiar with in ‘On Melancholy Hill’ and ‘Broken’. The first verse is sung by Yukimi Nagano, lead singer of Little Dragons:

Waiting by the mailbox, by the train

Passin’ by the hills ‘til I hear the name

I’m looking for a saw to cut the

Chains in half and all I want is

Someone to rely on as

Thunder comes a-roarin’ down

Someone to rely on as

Lightning comes a-starin’ in again

The first 2 lines introduce us to the feelings that the girl is feeling. She takes long walks around train tracks and the hills until someone calls her name and she has to get back into the real world. This is a feeling of meaninglessness and emptiness that depression patients often attempt to describe. Waiting by the mailbox could also be a reference to hearing from our writer. Next, she explains that she’s looking for a way to cut her chains. This, again, could be a metaphor for depression. Severe depression is caused by chemical imbalances in the brain and the patients usually feel helpless to break out of this state of mind. She is looking for someone to rely on as the thunder and lightning roll in. Bipolar depression is the most prevalent form of depression, occurring in cycles of high and low energy, where the low energy leads to a highly depressive state, which can surely feel like a storm ravaging through one’s life. The second verse, by Gorillaz singer Damon Albarn, transitions beautifully as the words ‘I’ll wait’ overlap with the words ‘in again’ from the previous line, signifying an unspoken dialogue:

I’ll wait to be forgiven

Maybe I never will

My star has left me

To take the better pill

That shattered feeling, well the

Cause of it’s a lesson learned

Just don’t know if I could

Roll into the sea again

‘Just don’t know if I could

Do it all again’ she said, it’s true

In the previous verse, we discovered that the girl’s depression might have been part of the reason that the couple broke up. In the previous song, we learned that the writer blamed himself and how he is ‘without a heart’ for the break-up. Here, we revisit those feelings, beginning with him waiting for forgiveness that may never come. He feels like it’s his fault, perhaps because he became too invested in looking for the truth in the quest he started during ‘On Melancholy Hill’, and could not form an emotional connection with the girl. This could have ended up badly for the girl, who might have been suffering another bout of depression around the same time, and having not found support from him, left to be alone. The way these verses are organized, with no direct dialogue and transitions between their end and beginning, shows that these are soliloquy-dialogues, where each character is simply speaking their thoughts alone but the thoughts of the two characters compliment each other and can be interpreted as a conversation by a third party, the listener. The writer goes on to explain that his ‘star’ has left him, again playing on the astronomy themes we saw in ‘Broken’, this time referring to the girl. ‘To take the better pill’ could refer both to how she is better off faring with her depression when she’s alone compared to when she’s with him (perhaps he’s always talking about doom, which surely doesn’t help her situation), or she has started taking medication at the same time as she left him. This second interpretation also fits with ‘On Melancholy Hill’ lyrics, where the writer described the girl as his medicine when she’s close to him. Following that interpretation, it would mean that the girl was able to help the writer out of depression but he was unable to help her, leading her to leave him and try antidepressants. The next two lines are self explanatory, the broken feeling of the writer being a result of the lesson he learned about how to treat people close to him. ‘Just don’t know if I could/roll into the sea again’ is another reference to ‘On Melancholy Hill’ where going out into the sea symbolized an exploration of the world and the self. The writer is tired of the blowback he and his ex-partner received because of this exploration and he doesn’t know if he has the energy or determination to continue his quest for truth. His sentiments are echoed by the girl, who uses the same words but refers to doing ‘it all again’, which includes being with him regardless of whether he’s rolling out into the sea. At the end, the writer acknowledges that this may be true for him as well. All in all, this verse highlights how damaged the writer has become as a result of the exposure to the true nature of Plastic Beach. After a short instrumental that is distinct from the seamless transition between the last two verse, we move on to the 3rd verse, sung again by the girl:

Waiting in my room and I lock the door

I watch the coloured animals cross the floor

And I’m looking from a distance

And I’m listening to the whispers

And oh it ain’t the same, when you’ve

Fallen out of feeling and you’re

Falling in and caught again

Cau-au-au-aught again

We pick up right where we left off with the girl being in a very depressed state. In this instance, she has locked herself inside her room and locked the door, avoiding all contact with the outside world and not reaching out for help at all anymore (as opposed to waiting by the mailbox in the last verse). In the second line, she’s presumably looking outside the window of her room. ‘The coloured animals’ is an allusion to the people of The Beach, who, like people anywhere, seem like they’re capable of experiencing and expressing the whole range of human emotions and are walking around outside the window. The use of the term ‘animal’ here is not meant to degrade them, but to elevate their state above the state of the girl herself, since animals can feel and she can’t, in her current state. The next few lines outline that she can hear the things that those emotionally okay people are saying but listening to their stories and observing their emotional expressions just isn’t the same when you’ve fallen out of feeling. The phrases ‘looking from a distance’ and ‘listening to the whispers’ could also be metaphors for how one feels while suffering from depression. She may be looking at people passing right by the window and talking loudly, but her depression makes her feel so detached from them that it feels as though she’s farther away from them than she physically is. The last two lines bring us back to the suffocating feeling that surrounds her, as she feels caught once more in this cycle, unable to do anything to help herself, like a passenger in a car headed off a cliff. The 3rd verse transitions similarly into the 4th verse as the 1st had into the 2nd. The writer sings again:

I’m caught again in the mystery

You’re by my side, but are you still with me?

The answer’s somewhere deep in it,

I’m sorry that you’re feeling it

But I just have to tell you that I

Love you so much these days

Have to tell you that I

Love you so much these days, it’s true

Having realized, at the end of his last verse, that he may not be able to go out into the sea and search for a higher truth anymore, the writer has now come back by the side of the girl, to comfort her in her time of need and ask her to give him a second chance. The writer begins this verse with the feeling of being caught in a mystery again. This mystery surrounds the girl and her state of mind. He’s right by her side physically, but he’s unsure whether she is there with him in that moment. The answer to this mystery is somewhere deep in ‘it’, where it represents the depression afflicting the girl. Somewhere deep in the trains of thought that are suffocating the girl, lies the answer of whether she finds his presence by her side comforting, and therefore whether she accepts his presence. Next, the writer apologizes for her state of mind, and explains that in spite of her state of mind, he has to let her know that he loves her very much these days. There are two reasons for these last 5 lines being of major significance. The first is that, in this instance, he has spoken to her directly, using the pronoun ‘you’ instead of ‘her’, the latter of which he used in his first verse to refer to her in third person. This means that both this verse, and the girl’s verse right before this were actual face-to-face dialogues rather than soliloquy-form dialogues. The girl had been describing her state to him and he, after acknowledging it, is letting her know that he loves her a lot. The second reason that these lines are significant is that the writer has gone from being so disconnected with her and being concerned about the perils of the world he lives in, to now putting all of that aside to show her his love and support in her time of need. This is a major character development for the writer, our main vessel for exploring the story of Plastic Beach. He has come to realize that human connection is the thing that is most valuable to him, even more than the search for the truth and saving the world. These closing lines of the writer’s last solo verse of the album set us up for the conclusion of the album, providing us with more closure and less doom than the content that precedes it. To end off the song, we get a combined verse from the writer and the girl, perhaps alluding to a return to being together and supporting each other:

My heart is in economy

Due to this autonomy

Rolling in and caught again

Cau-au-au-aught again

Cau-au-au-aught again

My heart is in economy (cau-au-au-aught again)

Due to this autonomy (cau-au-au-aught again)

Rollin in and caught again

Cau-au-au-aught again

The writer begins the outro by describing his heart as an economy, perhaps referring to his state of mind cycling back and forth between the highs and the lows, the same way stocks of corporations do. This is caused, explains the writer, by ‘this autonomy’. Autonomy refers to self governance, and freedom from external control. This could refer to the writer having found the higher truth that he had set out to find on ‘Melancholy Hill’ and has therefore broken free of the materialism, pollution and mindless consumerism that had governed his self prior. This higher truth, it seems, is that human connection is all that remains real in a world made up of artificial junk. As a result, he accepts that his mind will see highs and lows while he’s with his partner, and that is part of living by the side of someone you love. The girl and the writer sing the ‘cau-au-au-aught again’ lines right after that together, implying that they have come to terms with their respective negative feelings coming in and going in cycles. The second part of the outro verse is a repetition of the same lyrics, but sonically it is more harmonious than the first, with the girl and the writer singing together during every line except ‘rolling in and caught again’, which is sung only by the writer. They end off with singing the last line together once more, followed by an instrumental fading out to the sound s of birds, and waves crashing on the shore. Our two main characters have finally reached a place of peace in their personal lives by standing side by side.

Lastly, we arrive at the second last song of the album and the last song I’ll tackle in this piece: ‘Cloud of Unknowing’. Transitioning through the sound of birds and waves from the previous track, this song begins with a quiet reflection on what is and a cautious optimism for what will be, as Bobby Womack’s shiver generating vocals deliver to us the first verse:

On the cloud of unknowing

My world seems open

Every satellite up here is watching

But I was here from the very start

Trying to find a way

To your heart

The first two lines are fairly straightforward. Considering this song is not sung by our main narrator, we can assume that this is a different perspective on the happenings of The Beach. This person has reached a level of observance that is more unbiased and closer to the truth than the regular people of The Beach, hinted at with the word ‘cloud’, from which point he watches these people. It is a cloud of unknowing, where ignorance is acceptable and even encouraged, a feeling that resonates deeply with the foundations of philosophy and science. From this point of view, his world seems open. He is free(er) to explore the different aspects of the world in which he lives. The satellites that Plastic Beach has put into outer space for multitude of purposes are also able to observe the people of The Beach, but they have not been up there from the very start, as he has. ‘The very start’, in this case, could refer to how far back into the past his knowledge extends. Perhaps through pre-satellite historical records, or through empirical inquiry, he is able to see the behaviours of his people (his species?) throughout time. This makes his observance purer, deeper and more powerful than the satellites. His only purpose from the beginning was to find a way ‘to your heart’, where ‘your heart’ could refer to the hearts of human beings, a poetic way to refer to our desires and feelings. He has been trying to figure out what it is that we want, in the pursuit of which we have done so much harm to each other and to our little Beach. After a short pause, Womack continues:

All the days are forgetting

They’ve gone out with the tide

Lost at sea, somewhere, waiting

Like setting suns at the rodeo

Trying to find someone you’ll never know

The first line is phrased in a peculiar way. It leads to two possible meanings: either the days are forgetting the people who have gone out with the tide, or the people are forgetting the days going by, which seem to have gone by the same way the tide does. If the second meaning is true, the verse is a commentary on how the people of The Beach are failing to live their lives in any meaningful way, caught up in their instant gratification lifestyle and never digging deeper for the truth or human connection. The first meaning, which makes more sense considering later lines, refers to the people of The Beach abandoning The Beach and setting out to sea. It’s a reasonable guess to say that some sort of catastrophe, brought onto The Beach by its own people, has forced them to leave their home and look for another place to live. The similarities with the contemporary climate change and pollution problems of Earth are hard to miss here. The people of The Beach have left their island and are now lost at sea, waiting to be saved. Their search is akin to the setting of the sun at the rodeo, a day of fun and good times now behind the spectators who wait for the darkness to disallow the rodeo from continuing. The last line is a deviation from the general them of the verse, explaining that the lost people are trying to find someone that they’ll never know. It seems that the ‘someone’ here is an allusion to the people that the ex-residents of The Beach used to be before their own inventions and advances led them down a path of destruction. Now it has become impossible for them to ‘know’ the species that they used to be. Their ancestors would have been able to survive in the sea, finding land that they could live off of in a sustainably way, or sailing around indefinitely and living off the resources of the sea. They realize this but are unable to employ the skills and wisdom of their ancestors. We move seamlessly into the next and final verse:

Oh sinking love

On the cloud of unknowing

Every satellite up here is watching

Waiting to see what the morning brings

May bring sunshine on its wings

We begin the final verse with the fear that the escapees of The Beach will sink. Perhaps they have found the love that they had lost (as we heard in ‘Broken’) in their last moments. With the next two lines we’re brought back to the observer watching from the cloud of unknowing along with the satellites. This time, however, the observer doesn’t differentiate between his observance and that of the satellites. This time, it doesn’t matter that the he knows more. This time, they’re both waiting to see what the morning brings. Ending on an uncertainly optimistic note, the observer signs off with ‘may bring sunshine on its wings’. After humanity has destroyed its surroundings and itself, perhaps the next day, after the disaster it created rendered it a laughable fraction of what it used to be, there is a chance that it may live on. There may be hope that the adherents of the ‘Beach ideology’ will change their ways, and the residents of The Beach will recognize their flaws and move forward to create a better world.

Plastic Beach serves as a snapshot of humanity in the late parts of the first decade of the 21st century. It tells the story of a planet being brought to a breaking point, in the form of an island being exploited to no end. It tells the story of a population losing its identity in the pursuit of instant pleasure, never stopping to wonder what lies beneath the surface of their own psyche. It is a commentary on the exploitation of the poor and the needy by the big corporations and rich countries, forgetting that we are all the same. It is a depiction of the sour outlook that each generation ends up having near the end of their days, of a world they no longer recognize or respect. It is a description of the lonely and empty state in which the minority that does look outwards for a higher truth finds itself in such a dreadful world. Plastic Beach is not an album that preaches revolution, nor one that asks you to be sad about how awful everything has become. It’s an album that describes where we were when it came out. Writing this piece 6 years after the album’s realease, I’m not sure we’ve budged too much in either direction. There does, however, seem to be some sunshine on the wings of the morning. Climate change is becoming something that we are addressing more and more each and every day. The exploits of big companies are becoming easier and easier to expose, with crowdfunding and petitions serving as the common person’s tool to take a stand against them. Science and philosophy are thriving, although sometimes under attack, in academic environments throughout the globe. There are, of course, a lot of things that have gone wrong and are getting worse every day, but that doesn’t take away from the positive change we are starting to see. Whether we will become the ‘sinking love’ out in the middle of the ocean or the ‘submarines’ that roll out into the sea to search for truth is yet to be seen.

There is one last track on the official album that I did not tackle here. This is partly due to the fact that ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ is an amazing conclusion song, and partly because the next song. ‘Pirate Jet’, is not lyric heavy and leaves the picture with much more closure than the open-ended Cloud of Unknowing. I leave you with this quote from Murdoc Niccals, one of the members of Gorillaz:

‘Pirate Jet’ takes the album out swinging, a finale with shuddering jazz hands: “Did you like the show? It was called PLANET EARTH”. We’re finished and now everyone’s evolved into plastic. A new breed of human. But y’know, I want to clear this up. ‘Plastic Beach’. It’s not a green record. It’s not a judgement on the world. It’s just a picture. Plastic Beach: it’s another place, another way of looking at the world. And this is its soundtrack….”