Songfacts®:

• "Sing" was one of the first songs written by Blur when they were still known as Seymour. It came together in the art studio belonging to frontman Damon Albarn's mother. The original demo version from 1989, "Sing (To Me)," was released over a decade later as a rare promo single. The demo takes the song in a faster, more energetic direction than the final album version heard on Leisure.
  
  According to Albarn in an interview with Select in 1995, "Sing" was "the first time, playing as a band, that I thought we really had something."
  
  "Even people who hated us would come rushing up and say, 'What was that song?'" added guitarist Graham Coxon.
  
  Lyrically, "Sing" touches on the loss of childhood innocence and the sense of meaning in life. Albarn explores a similarly apathetic topic on "There's No Other Way," which also features on Leisure.
• "Sing" was produced by Blur at the Roundhouse in London. Following its recording, the band felt the song was complete and required no further studio treatment. Since its release, "Sing" has become one of their most acclaimed songs among fans and critics. In 2023, The Guardian named it the 19th best Blur song, writing: "Its weird mix of lurching guitar noise, pounding drums and piano, and childlike chorus is, by turns, eerie and intoxicating; moreover, it doesn't sound like anyone else."
• This song appears in the 1996 film Trainspotting, directed by Danny Boyle. It plays during a memorable scene when Mark "Rent Boy" Renton (Ewan McGregor), Daniel "Spud" Murphy (Ewen Bremner), and Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller) run through the streets of Edinburgh after being caught shoplifting.
  
  With its blend of Britpop, techno, and '70s rock, the Trainspotting soundtrack is now regarded as much of a cultural phenomenon as the film itself.
• "Lost!" by Coldplay took inspiration from this song. In an interview with "MTV in 2008, Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman said: "In Detroit, and we were listening to that song in our dressing room. And we went on stage to do a soundcheck, and we were trying to write a song like that. And it's sort of evolved in various ways and has lots of different versions of itself."
  
  Coldplay frontman Chris Martin added: "That's often how we write, is we listen to something and we think it's incredible, and we feel stupid for not having anything as good as that, so we go and try to play it. And then, of course, because we don't know how to do that, we often come up with something new."
• On June 8, 2023, Blur performed "Sing" for the first time in over a decade as part of a free concert at La Riviera in Madrid. The band last performed the song during their headline set at the Coachella Festival in California in 2013.
• Blur's debut album, Leisure, was released in the UK on August 27, 1991. It charted at #7. The album was later released in the US with a slightly different tracklisting that saw "Sing" replaced with "I Know," which was previously issued as an A-side along with "She's So High." The photograph on the front cover of Leisure was taken in 1954 by Charles Hewitt for the British magazine Picture Post. Hewitt captured the image for a fashion feature on bathing hats: "Glamour in the Swim."
• "Sing" makes a powerful appearance in the 2023 Netflix documentary series BECKHAM. The song soundtracks a scene in episode 2, "Seeing Red," as David Beckham opens up about the backlash he faced after his infamous red card during the England vs. Argentina match at the 1998 World Cup.
• Liam Gallagher said on a Damon Albarn fanpage that "Sing" is his favorite Blur song, claiming it made him cry "like a baby."
  
  He's not a fan of "Song 2" however. Gallagher claimed he could have written that one "standing on my head," and "it's music for posh brats."