Damon Albarn delivered a moving rendition of ‘Royal Morning Blue’ on US TV yesterday – check out the video below.

The Blur and Gorillaz frontman featured as the musical guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night (January 20) in support of his 2021 solo album, ‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’.

Appearing live in the studio, Albarn performed the record’s ‘Royal Morning Blue’ on a piano in front of a changing, natural landscape backdrop. The musician was accompanied by a string quartet.

“At the end of the world/ Stay by my side/ At the end of the world/ Stay by my side/ Royal morning blue,” Albarn sang in the gentle outro to the song before the stage faded into darkness.

You can watch the performance here:

Meanwhile, Albarn is due to showcase ‘The Nearer The Fountain…’ at an intimate show in London next month. He’ll take to the stage at the Troxy on February 20 as part of the BRITs Week 2022 gig series.

It comes after the singer-songwriter embarked on a stripped-back UK piano tour last month, which included dates in York, Newcastle and Glasgow.

In keeping with the minimalist tone of his latest material, Damon Albarn played a melancholic version of Blur’s ‘Beetlebum’ during a special BBC Radio 2 set in November. He also covered The Human League’s 1981 classic ‘Don’t You Want Me’.

“I was gonna do [Blur’s] ‘Country House’ but I couldn’t make it miserable enough,” he joked with host Jo Whiley. “However hard I tried.”