Parklife

Phil Daniels was first approached to recite a poem for The Debt Collector. Albarn found no suitable poem, so he made that track instrumental and asked Daniels to do the lead vocal. It was recorded in about forty minutes, and Daniels took a cut of the royalties in place of a fee. Coxon said the song was sarcastic, about the park class: dustbin men, pigeons and joggers.

The third single reached number ten in the UK and went 2x Platinum on 190,000 copies. Pedro Romhanyi directed the video, with Daniels as a double-glazing salesman, filmed near The Pilot pub on the Greenwich Peninsula. Daniels has joined the band live at Glastonbury and Hyde Park in 2009, Hyde Park and the Brits in 2012, and Wembley in 2023. The Massed Bands of the Household Division played it at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics.

The band and Stephen Street produced the single, with John Smith. It won British Single of the Year and British Video of the Year at the 1995 Brit Awards. Ray Davies of the Kinks called it maybe their best song. The B-sides were Theme from an Imaginary Film, Supa Shoppa and Beard, and Nike used the song in a 1997 advert. Daniels also joined the band at the Manchester warm-up show on 26 June 2009.