Upon the release, Ian Gittins from
Melody Maker commented, "It's essentially a
Bond theme — the sleeve depicts a revolver, fitted with silencer, and a red rose — meeting
Adam Faith as "
Budgie", and thus all about sky-high dreams, bathos and underachievement." Alan Jones from
Music Week gave it a full score of five out of five and named it Pick of the Week, writing, "A surefire smash, combining Blurs most sophisticated song to date with the sought-after
Pet Shop Boys remix of '
Girls & Boys'. 'To the End' is a lush orchestrated song, with an endearingly quirky vocal and masses of potential." Pan-European magazine
Music & Media complimented it as "a lovely orchestrated ballad a la
Walker Brothers in the '60s." Rupert Howe from
NME wrote, "A musically perfect string-soaked ballad that dredges up all kinds of misty-eyed
Motown memories, hooks them up with a touch of Anglo-French lyrical dalliance and might have pulled off a minor coup if it weren't for the fact that
Damon never takes his tongue out of his cheek long enough to make the whole escapade entirely convincing."
Andrew Harrison from
Select remarked the song's "
Diamonds are Forever glitz and seedy glamour". Mark Sutherland from
Smash Hits named it a "sad slowie" in his review of the
Parklife album. ==Music video==