Styloroc (Nites of Suburbia)

Based somewhat on an earlier, very different Pulp song “Nights of Suburbia,” this song wound up on the b-side to the original 1992 “Babies” single. Jarvis’ spoken monologue is almost wholly upstaged by Russell’s groovy surf guitar. The rest of the song title can be explained by Candida’s instrument here -- the stylophone. It is most famously heard on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and it looks like this.

As for that monologue, it describes a lost tribe happening upon a strange (to them) land. A land of bad food, bad weather, bad sex. Yet the easy, convenient comforts of this society lure them in, and soon they are trapped. And because this is a culture founded on repetition, on living life the same way day upon day, it’s all that much harder to break loose.