Music From a Bachelor's Den

Sickly Grin

2012-02-16T21:36:00.000-05:00

There were two b-sides to the 1992 Caff single version of “MyLegendary Girlfriend.” Both of them were outtakes from Pulp’s past, eachrecorded by completely different lineups that didn’t bear much resemblance tothe one that made “MLG.” The first b-side, “Sickly Grin,” was the earlier song,recorded during the 1982 sessions for the band’s first album, It. Despite the fact that the bandlineup from It never appeared on anotherPulp song, “Sickly Grin,” unlike the rest of that album, bears some resemblanceto Pulp’s most famous sound. The song opens with a catchy, driving bass lineand features rudimentary, bright keyboards. The vocal melody snakesunpredictably, while still remaining appealing. It’s almost enough to distractfrom the fact that Jarvis’ lyric is a bit inelegant and clunky. He’s addressinghis need to show his emotions truthfully, rather than indulge in “falsejollity.” He’s trying to sound intelligent and perceptive, but he doesn’t yethave the command over language to make it work.

My Legendary Girlfriend

2012-02-07T19:07:00.000-05:00

This is what you get when Sheffield misfits curious aboutacid house music attempt to imitate Barry White. And yet, this is also much,much more than that.

I’ve probably been moving the goalposts throughout this blogbut, really, this is the first (quint)essential Pulp song. Somehow, bycombining throbbing dance beats, cinematic synths, funky wah-wah guitar and a Jarvismonologue/vocal for the ages, the band found their modus operandi, created thefirst epic, and even finally attained a small bit of mainstream attention, whenthe NME gave the song its Single ofthe Week award. Even the song title is perfect, evocative and yet tantalizinglyopen-ended.

That’s what makes this song so compelling – its unknowingness.Why, for example, does Jarvis alternate between referring to the Girlfriend insecond and third person? And yet, through the lyric’s strange mix of desire,seediness and poetry, it achieves a real meaning beyond the literal, acompelling sense of intrigue against the backdrop, as always, of Jarvis’hometown.

Pulp released two versions of the song. Of course, there’sthe original, single, also found on Separations(And here’s the low-low budget video.) But the band also released alimited-edition single with a soundcheck version of the song on Caff Records, atiny label run by friend-of-Pulp Bob Stanley, also a member of St. Etienne.This version gives a good idea of how the band performed the song live. Thereare no programmed beats, just hard-charging drums, bashes at the Farfisa and here-goes-nothingguitar. Jarvis’ vocal is similarly unhinged, with plenty of asides andnon-sequiters; at one point, he even lets at a Flavor Flav-like “Boyeee!”Needless to say, the Caff single is very rare now.

Street Operator

2012-01-30T22:11:00.000-05:00

Another also-ran from the demo sessions for This is Hardcore, “Street Operator”could’ve possibly been molded into something worthy of that album. With lyrics thatsatirize denizens of the drugged-out Britpop era, the song would’ve fitthematically. At the point of this recording, however, melodically “StreetOperator” is a rather unmemorable ballad, and the band plays it listlessly. It’sno real loss.

Is This House?

2012-01-25T19:35:00.001-05:00

I normally don’t really talk about Pulp remixes here – for one,they’re not very well-regarded. Also, I really know just about nothing aboutdance music. But since this remix of “This House is Condemned” is given a differenttitle, it seems worth treating as a separate entity. Helmed by Sheffieldhouse-music DJs Parrot and Winston, “Is This House?” is also a centerpiece of awitty scene from the recent, Pulp-centric music documentary The Beat is the Law. Check out the cliphere, with commentary from the two DJs, as well as Jarvis, Russell, Candida andNick.

As for the track itself, it sounds pretty dated, buteffectively spooky, especially the weird treatment on Russell’s voice, makingit sound like a choppy, distant transmission. It reminds me of the late-‘90sglitch craze, which wound up influencing Radiohead’s Kid A prettysignificantly.

Mile End

2012-01-23T23:08:00.003-05:00

Now, where was I…

Thanks to some encouragement from the fine folks at Bar Italia – plus today’s announcement of the first Pulp show on the U.S. East Coast since 1998 – I have decided to finally take this blog out of the mothballs and write about the 14 remaining released Pulp songs.

We’ll begin (again) with yet another contender for Most Well-Known Pulp Song in America. Thanks to its inclusion in the film Trainspotting (and its equally seminal soundtrack CD), “Mile End” was quite possibly many American fans’ real introduction to the band. The arch, art-glam melody and Jarvis’ quivering, sarcastic falsetto gave us our first indication that this band was very different from Oasis, Blur, etc.

“Mile End” was recorded during the Different Class sessions, and fits pretty handily into that album’s loose concept. In 1989, while studying film at St. Martin’s College, Jarvis lived in a squat in a decrepit high-rise apartment building in the Mile End section of London. He later called it “the worst nine months of my entire life.” And so, the lyrics detail a life surrounded by squalor, crime and despair with plenty of vivid detail. The jaunty music may sound merely ironic, but the way the two-note melody and Jarvis’ vocal fall on the words “Mile End” cements the helplessness, rage and sadness of the song.

The song is a sharp reminder: This is what it can be like to feel different, to strike out on your own and to reach a dead end. Sometimes, your talents and dreams are not rewarded. In fact, they can lead to a seemingly endless series of indignities.

Razzmatazz

2009-02-19T21:24:00.000-05:00

“It’s the most bitter song we’ve ever done,” Jarvis told Melody Maker at the time of this song’s release, February 1993. Sixteen years later, and it’s safe to say that it's still true. “Razzmatazz” contains some of his most savage bon mots, starting with the killer first line. The trouble with your brother, he’s always sleeping – with your mother. From there, the song hardly ever relents, as Jarvis reflects on an ex-girlfriend who scorned him for lacking a certain lively sense of flash, and her subsequent fall into depression and frustration. What saves it from being too bitter is the music, another confident 1993 slice of swirling, booming melody from the band. And there’s enough desperation in Jarvis’ voice to convey empathy, even at the song’s nastiest peaks. “However harsh I am about the people in ‘Razzmatazz,” he continued in that interview, “I’m not writing from above their level. I’ve got a lot of experience of being as sad as them, if not more so.”

Watch the video here.

Death Goes to the Disco

2009-02-03T20:44:00.000-05:00

As mentioned before, this remix of “Death Comes to Town” has weirdly always been easier to find than the source track. This is due to its placement on Countdown: 1992-1983, for a long time the pre-fame Pulp compilation that was the easiest to find, and the most comprehensive. ("Death Goes to the Disco" was also the b-side to the song "Countdown.") The track isn’t dramatically different from “Death Comes to Town.” There are a fewer verses, a drum breakdown and lots more echo on Jarvis’ vocal. However, these minor changes help make this version just a little bit more evocative.

This Is Hardcore

2009-01-22T22:48:00.000-05:00

Pulp is my favorite band. That said, I don’t know if I feel they’re underrated, that they ought to be considered one of the biggest, most important and serious groups in the world. Truth be told, I don’t really believe that any rock or pop artist is really underrated. Pretty much everyone gets the audience they deserve.

However, I will make the case that, in their own small way, Pulp did their part to expand the capabilities, ideas and language of popular songs. And I think there are three songs that most vividly illustrate this: “My Legendary Girlfriend,” “Common People” and “This Is Hardcore.”

When “This Is Hardcore” came out as a single, a few weeks before the release of the album of the same name, the press, perhaps understandably, honed in on the explicit lyrics, which seemed to describe the making of and participation in pornography with a creeping world-weariness. What makes these lyrics special is how they function as a near-perfect metaphor for Jarvis’ pursuit and ultimate capture of fame. For example, “This is me on top of you/ And I can’t believe that it took me this long,” could easily describe Pulp’s rise to the top of the British charts. And “This Is Hardcore” ultimately describes the corroding and dehumanizing after-effects of fame. Like porn, the song is saying, celebrity is something that seems alluring and forbidden, especially when you’re young; but up close it can turn out to be depressingly hollow.

The music works perfectly with the words. Pulp was never a band of virtuosos, yet their command over arrangement, their ability to use their musicianship to push the song into new territory, is superlative on a song like this. The song’s most florid elements – the glossy grand piano and expansive orchestra – are undercut with some fantastic musical sleaze: the seasick sample (from the music to a ‘60s German sci-fi TV show) and bump-and-grind rhythms. Mark Webber’s guitar enters midway through the song, sounding like Ziggy Stardust Goes Straight to Hell.

Even the video is brilliant, matched in Pulp’s filmed oeuvre only by “Bad Cover Version.” Directed by Doug Nichol, the clip cleverly avoids the porn angle; instead it’s a staggeringly accurate pastiche of a number of classic film styles, most notably Douglas Sirk, Busby Berkeley and film noir. It makes brilliant use of Jarvis and the other members of Pulp to boot. Just watch it already.

The Professional

2009-01-15T20:25:00.003-05:00

Most bands wouldn’t devote such conceptual and musical energy towards a mere b-side. In many ways, “The Professional” handily summarizes the overriding themes of This Is Hardcore. Over a loungy sample, Jarvis practically raps an unsparing litany of self-loathing, painting himself as an aging has-been hack. Like the rest of This Is Hardcore, because Jarvis is so wittily relentless (or relentlessly witty), the song somehow avoids nauseating self-pity. It becomes a weird kind of catharsis. Also, the song is constantly inventive. There’s the moment when the music completely drops out, leaving him sounding completely naked and vulnerable. And there’s a whopper of a final verse, where the song stops being a general treatise on Jarvis’ lameness. Suddenly, the song becomes specific yet ambiguous. Jarvis describes himself abandoning lovers before they awake, only to pick up new ones and begin the deceptions anew. Is “The Professional” a character piece now? Was it always? The song constantly invites new interpretations, making it one of the band’s best b-sides, one that could’ve easily fit onto Hardcore.

Weeds II (the origin of the species)

2009-01-08T22:32:00.002-05:00

Like “Babies” and “Your Sister’s Clothes,” or the Inside Susan trilogy, “Weeds” and this song work hand-in-hand. Here, the connection is especially blatant, since the songs serve as the first two tracks on We Love Life. Unlike the anthemic “Weeds,” this track is spookily electronic, laced with the eerie vocals of The Swingle Singers. But “Weeds II” is even less successful. With his spoken-word monologue, Jarvis threads his central metaphor (weeds = social outcasts) cleanly and fairly cleverly. But none of the lines really sting, and there’s no real pay-off line either. It’s arguably his most unmemorable monologue song, with none of the atmosphere of, say, “Sheffield: Sex City.”

Le Roi Des Fourmis

2009-01-03T22:32:00.001-05:00

Pulp recorded this for a tribute to French singer Michel Polnareff in 1993, but it wasn’t released until 1999, by which point the band’s sound had evolved considerably (not to mention the completed transition of guitar players, from Russell Senior to Mark Webber). So upon release, this song must’ve seemed like a strange capsule to a time when the band was eagerly but innocently indulging their most poptastic impulses, filling the arrangement with glam keyboards, boisterous drums and hilarious guitar riffs.

On top of all this, Jarvis delivers a ridiculously camp vocal performance; the song is in French, he doesn’t pretend to understand it and he has a ball with it all the same. There is one spoken English line: “At ten thirty-five precisely I realized I had nowhere left to fall and from that moment it began to get better. Being small and innocent could be an advantage sometimes,” which sure sounds like it came from Jarvis’ pen. Reportedly, he planned to sing the entire song in English, but the translated lyrics made no sense at all. The song’s title, by the way, translates as “The King of the Ants.”

The Babysitter

2008-12-22T21:47:00.000-05:00

A little over a year after the Inside Susan trilogy, Jarvis and the band decided to add a fourth chapter to the character’s story. Lyrically, “The Babysitter” is the most minimalistic of the Susan songs, as Jarvis briefly and subtly describes how she finds herself rejected by her husband in favor of the family babysitter, who resembles Susan in her younger days. Jarvis ably sketches this sordid yet heartbreaking scenario with economical wording. Additionally, the track contains some thrillingly chaotic instrumental sections, dominated by crazed drums and Stylophone.

Manon

2008-12-18T21:47:00.002-05:00

Inspired by a Serge Gainsbourg song of the same name, this mid-‘80s b-side/compilation track possibly points towards the Euro-folk-leaning tracks on Separations. “Manon” contains a careful, eerie arrangement nearly spoiled, once again, by Jarvis’ vocals. In later interviews, he’d rue his decision to sing in French in the song’s finale. Additionally, he admitted that he wrote the morbid lyrics under the erroneous assumption that “Manon” was a man’s name.

David's Last Summer

2008-12-10T20:17:00.001-05:00

His ‘n’ Hers closes with this seven-minute song which, despite its epic nature, remains of a piece with the rest of the album, giving the quotidian an eerie, almost poetic quality. Jarvis recites most of the lyrics, describing the activities of a young couple in first person, so we can assume that he is “David.” The words get a little lost in Ed Buller’s echoing, cavernous production, but they may be some of the most unabashedly romantic lines you’ll find in Pulp’s canon. It is only at the end, when Jarvis fearfully notes the looming end of summer -- and with it the end of this relationship -- that the true weight of this experience becomes apparent. The rest of Pulp provide an expertly dramatic musical backing, culminating in a frenzied climax that’s driven by some intense fire extinguisher-playing from Nick Banks.

“David’s Last Summer” is equally resonant in almost metaphorical sense. Near the end, Jarvis describes “summer packing its bags and preparing to leave town.” And in many ways, Pulp would do the same, adjusting their focus from the provincial to the metropolitan on the bulk of their next album, Different Class.

Yesterday

2008-12-04T20:30:00.000-05:00

“Yesterday” comes from the same aborted We Love Life sessions as “Forever in My Dreams,” but it’s a deeply inferior song. While the latter is one of Pulp’s most sublime and deeply moving hidden tracks, “Yesterday” is wan, rote and uninspired, from the bland guitar riff that opens the song through Jarvis’ distracted delivery of one of his few bland lyrics. It’s not the most original idea for a song – a pep talk urging someone to let go of the past. Jarvis has generally had little trouble revitalizing once-hackneyed song ideas with wit and imagination. Not this time. At least the band knew well enough to give the song a fairly wide berth, on the b-side to “Bad Cover Version,” along with “Forever in My Dreams,” but they could have gone further and left the song in the vaults. There are lost songs from this era, such as “The Quiet Revolution” and “Cuckoo Song,” that also leave “Yesterday” in the dust.

There's No Emotion

2008-11-25T22:22:00.000-05:00

Another miserable Freaks song, this one dedicated to pinpointing the exact moment that a particular relationship dies. Truth is, the melody to this one is actually quite lovely, and it sounds like at least a little time went into the arrangement. The failure of this song is all due to Jarvis’ mid-‘80s vocal deficiencies. His mannered croon cannot even begin to locate the delicate tenor of the song. Vocally, he’s totally upstaged by none other than Candida Doyle, who provides one of her rare, whispered harmony lines on the chorus, and she’s the one, more than any other player, grounding the song with a recognizable, relatable sentiment.

By the way, as you may notice on the upper right side, you can now sign up to this blog’s network on Facebook. If you’re willing and able, I highly encourage you to do so!

Like a Friend

2008-11-19T21:27:00.000-05:00

One of the nice things about a blog – unlike a book or a thesis – is that it’s okay to change your mind and willingly contradict yourself. So, did I say “Disco 2000” was Pulp’s best chance for a U.S. hit? Eh, maybe I spoke too soon. “Like a Friend” is also pretty damn catchy, featuring one of the band’s most rousing performances. Plus, the song was attached to the 1998 film of Great Expectations – starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert DeNiro – which I recall getting a lot of publicity at the time, although I’m not sure how well it’s remembered now. The band made a video interspersed with clips from the film, but perhaps that doesn’t really matter in the long run.

The real strength of “Like a Friend” is its mix of catchy melodies – in the song’s languorous and anthemic sections – with Jarvis’ pithy metaphors on a timeless theme: the codependency of friendship. Although the song doesn’t really have a chorus, it builds to a real fist-pumping kind of coda, and Jarvis’ lyrics are witty and concise, covering a universal topic that probably doesn’t get as much play in modern pop music as it should.

In addition to appearing on a soundtrack and a b-side, “Like a Friend” also showed up as the last track on the U.S. version of This Is Hardcore, where I think it actually fits very well as a kind of encore track. Still, we’re going with the British track listings for this blog, so I’m not tagging it as a TIH track.

Everybody's Problem

2008-11-10T21:32:00.001-05:00

This 1983 single came to pass after the band’s then-manager suggested Jarvis try writing something Wham-esque. The result makes you wonder if Jarvis had actually ever heard Wham. Aside from a vaguely faux-Motown rhythm, this is still a fairly weedy example of early-‘80s British indie, lacking the big, brash hooks that George Michael and Andrew Ridgely so reliably provided. And I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Wham songs with prominent trombone parts. The lyrics sketch out a breakdown in interpersonal communication with some measure of wit but no conciseness, no catchy pay-off line. Jarvis would eventually master such things, but not for some time.

Like this single’s infinitely superior b-side, “There Was,” “Everybody’s Problem” turned up on the 2000 soundtrack to Schooldisco, whatever that is.

So, you’re probably wondering what happened to this blog. It just went on hiatus, really. My official excuse involves a combination of work, the World Series (yay these guys!) and the U.S. Presidential Election (yay this guy!). But I think I also just needed a break. For the time being, I hope to post at least once a week. Hopefully in the new year, I’ll get back up to two or three times a week, and finish the blog out in style!

Goodnight

2008-09-15T22:17:00.002-04:00

More foreboding tidings from the ‘80s; as was their custom at this time, Pulp create a convincing sense of menace on this track. Celestial organ and dulcimer give rise to a steadily increasing intensity. Jarvis’ spoken verses convey the moment just before sleep, but something is not quite right. The sung chorus is less effective, thanks to his usual pitch problems of this era. Fortunately, in the song’s last few minutes, his voice fades in the mix, giving focus to the band’s vehemence.

Watching Nicky

2008-09-11T21:46:00.003-04:00

Like “You’re Not Blind,” this demo appears to be another embryonic version of “Babies.” Nick Banks wrote the central guitar riff that these songs share, which explains the title at least superficially. Jarvis claimed the song concerned an ex-girlfriend, although certain details – giving up an artistic career to raise a child – resemble the biography of Jarvis’ own mother. So “Watching Nicky” also incorporates the scenario of “Little Girl (With Blue Eyes).” The song is certainly catchy – that guitar is quite alluring, after all – but it’s not quite the sum of its parts, and certainly lacks the unique kick of “Babies.” All in all, good thing they went back to the drawing board with this one.

Disco 2000

2008-09-08T22:32:00.003-04:00

If any Pulp single was ever to be a hit in the U.S., I guess this would have been it. After all, not only is “Disco 2000” loaded with monster hooks, but the most monstrous, most gigantic of those hooks is a nod to a very recognizable U.S. hit. The opening riff to “Disco 2000” blatantly references Laura Branigan’s 1982 hit “Gloria,” and Jarvis alludes to it as well with some of his phrasing choices. But of course it wasn’t really a hit in the U.S. Although the grunge era was waning by this point, perhaps we still weren’t quite ready to embrace a rock song that wittily recalled the early '80s without devolving into smug irony and distance.

Of course, the song is more than just its pop-culture reference. “Disco 2000” occurs in the middle of Different Class, in the section that addresses love and longing. Here, Jarvis approaches the subject from an almost guilelessly naïve perspective. The narrator on the song carries a torch for his very first crush from childhood, a girl named Deborah. Back then, he thought there was a chance, and now, crazily enough, he still thinks so, trying desperately to arrange for a rendezvous at some half-remembered spot he claims to have suggested way back when. The song conveys all this, plus some expertly sketched memories of adolescent hormonal craziness, with Pulp’s patented mix of big pop cheer and deep, neurotic sadness.

The video tells a completely different storyline. It also features the single mix of the song, which adds extra keyboards, backing vocals and other changes. It’s very catchy, but in some ways it’s not quite Pulp. As contrast, here's a live version performed on MTV.

Nights of Suburbia

2008-09-03T20:01:00.000-04:00

This song is hardly related at all to the groovily sinister “Styloroc (Nites of Suburbia).” “Nights of Suburbia” is another nervous Euro-goth exercise, with Jarvis moaning unpleasantly about something-or-other. He seems especially keen to let us know, time and again, that “the virgins became whores” on this song. The song came to light in a lo-fi live recording on a 1987 compilation tape, See You Later, Agitator! And now you can download it from PulpWiki.

Seductive Barry

2008-08-24T20:21:00.000-04:00

Like “F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.” this is obviously a seduction song that, on the face of it, doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the overriding concept of the surrounding album. This Is Hardcore examines at once the allure of desire, and the toll it takes. “Seductive Barry” spends almost all of its 8-plus minutes reveling purely in the allure, so much so that it doesn’t quite fit. Additionally, the song is uniquely what you might call a single-entendre Pulp song. On “My Legendary Girlfriend” and “I Spy,” Jarvis uses sex to talk about Sheffield and class. On “Seductive Barry,” he uses sex to talk about sex. It’s only at the very end that we get an indication that things are maybe not what they seem here: “And if this is a dream, then I’m going to sleep for the rest of my life.”

The triumph of this track is musical, as the band creates an enveloping sound where programmed and more traditional parts merge together harmoniously. The song builds slowly, but reaches a delicious payoff at the, er, climax.

The Will to Power

2008-08-19T19:38:00.001-04:00

The first Pulp song released with a Russell Senior lead vocal. Senior attempted here to get inside the mindset of a humiliated failure of a man who has decisively turned to fascism. It should be noted that Senior was a pretty committed socialist at this point, and decidedly not a Nazi. He describes his motives for writing this song in more detail in Mark Sturdy’s Pulp bio, Truth and Beauty, which in fact gets its title from this song. Fascism is a subject matter that Jarvis might’ve found difficult, so a far less accomplished writer like Senior ultimately brings very little insight. Instead, there are laughable lines like “Weak flesh projected through Europe on speed of all needs.” Although the song itself is no great shakes, the band manages to turn in an appealingly intense performance that does a much better job of conveying a sudden rise of violence.

Death Comes to Town

2008-08-14T22:40:00.001-04:00

I’m not exactly sure what drew Jarvis to the persona of the Grim Reaper for a series of songs but, as he himself would probably tell you, he was in a pretty weird state in the ‘80s. “Death Comes to Town” features the morbid storytelling of Freaks, but in a disco setting that points directly to the Separations era. I’m pretty sure this is the first Pulp studio recording to feature Nick Banks on drums.

It’s actually only a demo, and it didn’t see the light of day till 2005, when it appeared on a CD that came with the book Beats Working For a Living: Sheffield Popular Music 1973-1984 by Martin Lilleker. (Oddly, this demo was recorded sometime around 1986-87.) What’s most strange is that the remix of “Death Comes to Town,” entitled “Death Goes to the Disco” is way easier to find. So much so, it gets a separate entry on PulpWiki. I’m going to follow their cue, and write about the remix on another post.

Wishful Thinking

2008-08-11T23:05:00.001-04:00

On Pulp’s first album, this song opens with a simple but brilliantly effective arrangement, as guitar and piano intertwine. “Wishful Thinking” finds Jarvis admitting feelings of loneliness and desire with admirable honesty, if only he had found a more elegant way of expressing them. Here, Jarvis manages to exclaim “It turned me on,” not once but twice, without a trace of the winking lasciviousness he would later master. His constant chorus of “I’ve got this love inside of me,” delivered at a painful pitch alongside one of his most twee melodies, doesn’t help matters. Then there’s the flute solos. And yet, I find this song’s gawky charm endearing. But then, I’m a diehard fan.

Prior to It, an earlier incarnation of Pulp recorded this song for their first Peel Session. In some ways, this is the superior version, with a rickety drum beat and atmospheric synths to give to song some urgency, maybe even something approximating an edge.

Lipgloss

2008-08-09T12:58:00.003-04:00

This is my favorite Pulp song, a perfect piece of pop that manages to be both dour and uplifting. Musically, it’s another great example of the band’s mid-‘90s aesthetic: an uncomplicated, simply played song, but with the execution and right production touches, it becomes the stuff of great drama. “Lipgloss” has all the bleak but sympathetic imagery of a Mike Leigh film, but one with a soundtrack by Roxy Music. Jarvis looks at a woman undone by a dissolved romance. His lyrics perfect capture the feelings of shame and self-loathing that gnaw at the woman. And he delivers this with a knowledge that indicates that he knows exactly how this feels all too well.

I’ve been thinking lately just how powerful the payoff line of the chorus is. “There’s something wrong/ You had it once, but now it’s gone.” On paper, it sounds matter-of-fact, brusque even. But it’s also the most universal line in the song; even if you’ve never suffered a broken heart in this precise way, something in your life has probably gone so wrong so fast you never had a chance to figure out what exactly happened. And that line, combined with the whirlwind thrill of the music, captures that exact feeling.

Lots of good YouTubes of the song: the video; an amazing TV performance; a great rendition with the band flanked by dancing audience members; and footage of Jarvis recording a synth overdub.

My Erection

2008-08-06T22:55:00.001-04:00

A bouncy would-be pop song gets thoroughly perverted on this Hardcore-era demo. “My Erection” has an almost identical instrumental lineup as “Ladies’ Man” – right down to Jarvis’ thoroughly vocoder-ized vocals, an apparent effort to “completely erase my personality.” As a result his vocals are even more impenetrable than on "Ladies' Man. Suffice to say there’s more than a little grunting and moaning, all rendered positively slithery by the effects. The This Is Hardcore reissue booklet does include lyrics for the song, in which the titular, um, item provides the narrator with a sense of, er, direction. But good luck figuring out how to sing along. Although the song seems a bit tossed off, its demented sense of sleaze feels genuine and well-earned.

59 Lyndhurst Grove

2008-07-31T20:54:00.000-04:00

We’ve reached the final part of the Inside Susan trilogy. (Read about the first two parts here and here.) Anyone relatively familiar with Jarvis’ lyrical perspective won’t be surprised to learn that, in adulthood, Susan has reached a life of stifling domestic inertia. Stuck in a passionless marriage, she’s taken a lover. Despite this seemingly basic scenario, Jarvis adds some unique, finely observed details. Take note of his first-verse description of a party where “they were dancing with children round their necks/ Talking business, books and records, art and sex.” Jarvis’ remarks on the inspiration for this song are worth reading. Check out a live performance of the song here.

Deep Fried in Kelvin

2008-07-28T22:52:00.001-04:00

At nine minutes and 48 seconds, this b-side handily earns the distinction of being Pulp’s longest song. Like most long Pulp songs, it also serves as an opportunity for an extended Jarvis monologue, this one about the squalor and hopelessness of Sheffield council estates. Here, Jarvis focuses his ire on Kelvin Flats, which were apparently especially dismal. While his diatribe is at times impenetrable sans lyric sheet, it melds perfectly with the band’s performance, a superior ebb and flow driven by a guitar line that’s both cheesy and ominous. At times, “Deep Fried in Kelvin” seems almost trance-inducing; you can even forget that it’s nearly ten minutes long. As it approaches provincial concerns with a cinematic sense of scope, the song found its way into theaters, via a scene in The Full Monty. And you gotta love the fake-out ending.

Forever in My Dreams

2008-07-24T22:34:00.002-04:00

Another We Love Life also-ran hinting at a compelling direction the band could have headed towards. This b-side dates to the early sessions for the album, before producer Chris Thomas was sent packing. Opening with a sampled loop of distant music, the music swells as each detail is added – spaghetti-western guitars, celestial keyboards, and a stirring rhythm. Jarvis sings about a love that isn’t fleeting, even if he still hedges at “forever”; in fact he spends much of the song casting aspersions on the idea of it. The title indicates that he regards the concept as a mere fantasy. But despite his cynicism, in this song he looks to a woman to make “forever” seem tangible, something worth reaching for. He can’t help but temper some of his most unabashedly romantic lines with an edgy turn-of-phrase: “And I love and respect you/I will honor and obey/ But baby will I marry you?/ Well, that will be the day.” But despite that, the overall tone of “Forever in My Dreams” speaks to hope and promise. It just acknowledges fickle human behavior as well. But it’s one of the most stirring songs they made and, as often is this case, it didn’t necessarily need to languish as a b-side.

What Do You Say?

2008-07-21T20:17:00.002-04:00

The first Pulp song ever released, appearing on a compilation entitled Your Secret’s Safe with Us. The sound of the song is twitchy and doomy – very Factory Records. As a lyricist, Jarvis has already acquired a sense of ambition, sketching a macabre scenario in which he wakes to realize he’s literally changed into another person. Is he thinking along the lines of a less gruesome version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis? Or maybe it’s an inadvertent precursor to the movie Big. Jarvis would have been around 18 when this song came out. Maybe he’s reflecting on adolescence, and the emotional and physical upheavals that come with it. Here he takes that feeling, and transports it into the realm of horror, making the metaphor into something concrete. He truly wants to contemplate -- not only for himself but for those around him -- what it would mean to become another person.

Tunnel

2008-07-19T21:15:00.002-04:00

“The muse was with us then.” So says Russell Senior regarding the creation of this track in Mark Sturdy’s Truth and Beauty: The Story of Pulp. “Tunnel” is definitely a unique entry in Pulp’s discography – an eight-minute, pummeling, discordant epic. Driven by Peter Mansell’s driving bass – an instrument rarely given center-stage during this era of the band – “Tunnell” is a harsh rumination of the band’s feelings of dislocation and confusion. Jarvis’ panicked monologue seems to be delivered through a faulty megaphone, distorting and cutting out throughout the song. It sounds like an accurate depiction of some pretty dark minds. And yet, there’s something missing about the song. For all its lack of compromise, it still comes off as an amalgam of other post-punk British bands, mainly Joy Division and The Fall. Plus, the song’s payoff line – “I’ll never ever be clean again” – seems borrowed from The Cure’s “”The Figurehead.” It may be a brutal track, but it still sounds like Jarvis hasn’t found his voice yet, and so it’s not quite essential Pulp.

Sunrise

2008-07-14T20:46:00.002-04:00

I very deliberately chose to place entries on this song and “Bar Italia” next to each other. I don’t think I’ve ever heard this mentioned elsewhere – and it didn’t occur to me till about a year ago – but both songs essentially describe the same situation. They both occur at dawn, after a long, long night of carousing. “Bar Italia” takes a dark, sardonic approach. But on “Sunrise,” Jarvis decides to be both caustic and optimistic. Over gently unfolding guitars, he laments his wasted, boozy adulthood with some of his most trenchant, self-needling lines, culminating with a gem of a couplet: “All my achievements in days of yore/ Range from pathetic to piss-poor.” But now’s he vowing to change, not so much his night-life habits, but his feelings of remorse and guilt over staying up all night. He’s trying to embrace that sunrise, not rue it.

The band began playing “Sunrise” in concert a good year-and-a-half before We Love Life was finally released. Its extended instrumental coda – contrasting Mark Webber’s minimalist but anthemic guitar lines with Nick Banks’ boisterous drumming – made the song a fan favorite from early on, and Jarvis tried to rush out a single version, just as they did with “Common People,” which live audiences also embraced early on. However, due to a changing record industry, it didn’t happen as planned. The song eventually came out as a double a-side with “The Trees,” both of which were coolly received by consumers. Still, “Sunrise” remains a fan favorite, and one of the finest songs by the “mature” Pulp. Here’s a live version with some especially impressive dancing from Jarvis at the end.

Bar Italia

2008-07-10T23:27:00.001-04:00

Pulp’s most famous album closes with this gentle, almost country-tinged track that’s arguably as desolate as anything on Freaks or This Is Hardcore. Describing the aftermath of an endless night of drinking, dancing, partying, etc., “Bar Italia” features a narrator and his companion, the living dead groggily heading to the titular café for some much-needed coffee. In one light, the song is pretty matter-of-fact, as the duo deal with their impending hangovers with ironic melodrama and put-downs. But, especially coming after the whirlwind of experience and increasing cynicism on the previous 12 tracks, the exhaustion in Jarvis’ voice cuts deep. And the lyric that closes each chorus offhandedly captures the sadness and horror of the song: “You’re looking so confused/ Oh, what did you lose?” And Jarvis admits that they are fated to continuing having these to these kinds of nights; the implied reason being, what else is there to do? It’s at the song’s end, when (I think) he wearily reasons they may as well go to another bar, that get a sense of how he really feels, like one of the “broken people.” It’s a long, long way from brash confidence that opened the album.

Musically, it’s worth noting the instrumental interlude, where the band lurches into a drunken waltz. Here’s a memorable, slightly stripped down performance of the song from The Mercury Prize broadcast. (They won that year.)

You Are the One

2008-07-08T23:24:00.000-04:00

Jarvis has described this discarded demo as a song that might’ve made This Is Hardcore more Different Class-like. “You Are the One” bears a thematic relation to “Something Changed,” but it’s a second-hand, less inspired version. It’s only a demo, so you can’t really blame the band for coming up with an unfinished arrangement. But it’s clear their hearts are not in this song, and everyone involved would rather be working on the darker, more challenging Hardcore material. Also, this song has no business being four-and-a-half minutes long.

Looking For Life

2008-07-02T18:44:00.000-04:00

The b-side of “My Lighthouse” got tacked onto the ’94 CD reissue of It. So, for all intents and purposes, this is the final song on It, as the majority of Pulp fans didn’t hear the album (and other early releases) until its mid-‘90s re-emergence. And it’s for the better; the slow-building drama of “Looking For Life” makes for a better album-closer than the wispy “In Many Ways.” Jarvis’ lyric vows to move on the wreckage of another love affair, but it’s celestial organ and relatively driving outro that makes the song memorable. And just to remind you that this is early Pulp, Jarvis also lets loose some painfully tuneless vocal ad libs during the song’s finale.

Help The Aged

2008-06-30T20:08:00.002-04:00

Pulp’s first new single after Different Class revealed a more world-weary band (and also a smaller one, what with longtime guitarist-violinist Russell Senior’s 1996 exit). Although, as this blog has tirelessly posited, Pulp’s music has always displayed an almost exhaustively neurotic perspective, “Help the Aged” was most certainly a calculated effort to bring it back to the forefront. No longer would the band embrace the hustling night life with something approaching pure satisfaction; but of course, nor would they suck all the joy out of their music.

“Help The Aged” still brims with glammy thrills and pop style. With its glossy keyboards and turbo-charged guitar riffs, they renewed their Bowie/Roxy Music allegiance. Jarvis proves him an especially worthy inheritor (and updater) of Bryan Ferry’s campy sense of style. He gives a vocal performance that seems ready-made for velvet jackets and tinted glasses. But at the same time, he completely rejects ironic distance and poseur effects. There are plenty of deadpan one-liners in the song, but this panic yelp in the chorus shows just how much he really means it, as he’s always meant it.

The video amusingly imagines a world in which hipsters ensnare ladies by dressing up at senior citizens. Also, the version of the song on The Peel Sessions is one for the ages. With the guitars set on “pulverize,” the band delivers one of their most thrillingly intense performances.

UPDATE: And how could I forget this rendition?

Sheffield: Sex City

2008-06-26T21:46:00.000-04:00

The original liner notes describe this “Babies” b-side as “the morning after ‘My Legendary Girlfriend.’” This song is certainly similar to that 1990 Pulp breakthrough. Both songs contain extended monologues that merge libido with existential longing in the unmistakable backdrop of Sheffield. In many ways, “Sheffield: Sex City” is the more blatant of the two songs, as the title indicates. Jarvis imbues his hometown with an unlikely but believable sexual tension, as the band vamps along atmospherically. Thanks to his effortless turns-of-phrase and the band’s genius at making scenically vivid music, this eight-and-a-half-minute track could only come from Pulp.

“Sheffield: Sex City” is also the first of two tracks to feature spoken-word contributions from Candida Doyle. I just learned from PulpWiki today that her monologue at the beginning comes from the book My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday.

Maureen

2008-06-18T19:27:00.002-04:00

Alright, I’m going to cheat a little with this one. This song was demoed twice in 1984. First demo went on two separate compilation cassettes; second demo went on a third comp. Since the second demo is way more obtainable, that is the one we’ll consider.

“Maureen” recycled a chord progression Russell Senior brought over from a prior band, and you can hear Pulp latching onto an electric guitar riff for (possibly) the first time. Jarvis’ lyric indulges his talent for pitch-black humor, as he details a romantic obsession and what it’s like when she runs you over with her car. The Cocker-Senior alliance hasn’t yet mastered their songwriting skills (Five years later, the duo would’ve at least added a third chord.) But the undeniable energy, coupled with Jarvis’ storytelling prowess, has made “Maureen” one of the Pulp rarities most beloved by diehard fans.

Now about that second demo. “Maureen” was one of the 11 songs recorded by the band on the “Sudan Gerri” demo tape. The demo’s engineer, John Nicholls, later created a website with MP3s of the entire tape. Currently, you can download “Sudan Gerri” on this page on the PulpWiki site.

Do You Remember the First Time?

2008-06-17T20:17:00.001-04:00

Years later, they met together in a bar. It wasn’t something she had planned or wanted. But she’d agreed, hoping for the best. But his façade of casual conversation and normality was badly structured, and she could sense his seething bitterness. His casual jokes about their folly-filled youth, and his insistent claims of happy, freedom-filled adulthood all seem a little too ardently insisted-upon. He gets drunker and angrier. She insists she needs be getting home soon. About that, he mocks her.

Here’s the video, which kind of gives me vertigo. For viewing pleasure, I prefer this slightly melancholy rendition from near the end of Pulp.

You're Not Blind

2008-06-09T22:11:00.001-04:00

“Another attempt to rewrite ‘Babies,’” says Jarvis, also pointing out the song’s “supremely nasty sentiment and quite nice guitar playing (god know who did it).” Regarding the latter, “You’re Not Blind” does contain some uncharacteristically Johnny Marr-like, interweaving guitars. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that this demo was one of the few Pulp tracks produced by former Smiths producer Stephen Street.

As for that “supremely nasty sentiment,” the lyrics find Jarvis trying on the cuckolding lothario persona that he would later assume to some notoriety on “Pencil Skirt” and “I Spy.” Here, he brazenly addresses the man he is humiliating, basically telling the guy that, because he’s not a complete idiot, he must realize his partner is getting more satisfaction elsewhere. It’s simply that obvious.

The Never-Ending Story

2008-06-04T21:35:00.000-04:00

As far as I know, it has absolutely nothing to do with the children’s book or its ‘80s film adaptation. But, with its combination of loud, shrill, frantic verses and loud, shrill, groaning choruses, it’s pretty much my choice for Worst Pulp Song. Jarvis’ monotonous vocal does absolutely nothing to give any life to the lyrics (which aren’t very noteworthy in the first place). There’s something notably avant-garde about the song, but the band is basically pushing an envelope that they should’ve just left alone. On the plus side, the song is only three minutes long.

The Trees

2008-06-02T18:20:00.001-04:00

Although “The Trees” is among the more successful alchemies of We Love Life’s themes (nature, love gone wrong, acoustic guitars), as a single it failed to give the band the necessary commercial lift. Why this happened is best left to blogs with a better understanding of the UK charts. To these Yankee ears, the band turns in a nicely relaxed performance, ably supported by a gentle electronic undercurrent. Jarvis’ rueful lyric sketches in the scenario concisely – acts of romance gone wrong outdoors, while the botany passively observes. Was this Pulp’s version of melancholy, Coldplay-style balladry? If so, maybe that explains the single’s failure. Despite the gentle, poppy melody, Pulp cannot make their morose nature subside here.

Also, it probably didn’t help that the video isn’t much to write home about either.

Refuse to be Blind

2008-05-29T19:23:00.000-04:00

According to Jarvis, this is “just a blatant Joy Division rip-off.” “Blatant” may actually be too strong a word. There’s not much of Martin Hannett’s eerie use of space and echo here. Instead, the production is fairly busy, with relentlessly squiggling synths all over the track. As Jarvis explains in his liner notes, since their ‘81 Peel Session wound up being their first experience in a real studio, they were determined to make the most of it. So, while most bands used their time at the BBC to bang out quick, mostly live renditions, the nascent Pulp instead eagerly used their time to finally indulge in all sorts of engineering and arrangement whims. Most notably, there’s the vocoder-like processing effect on Jarvis’ voice as he sings the title at the end (causing the band’s one-time driver to exclaim “I am a fucking Dalek!”; sadly, that did not make it onto the recording).

The song itself is a good bit of energetic, doomy post-punk, but lacks any real distinction. The lyrics imply a lot, but they’re most enigmatic and feel incomplete.

Glory Days

2008-05-27T22:51:00.003-04:00

Famously, the Criterion Special Edition DVD of Terry Gilliam’s classic Brazil contains the studio’s edit of the film, which fortunately was not the one released to theaters. However, the edit is cited as a fascinating example of the ways film editing can change crucial elements of story and character. Similarly, “Glory Days” – the final resting place of the “Cocaine Socialism” recording – shows how one can totally alter the spirit of a piece of music through mixing.

All the brashest elements of “Cocaine Socialism” have been excised, most notably the horns. There’s less echo, and the band’s parts sound much more muted. What was once savage is now strangely elegiac.

Jarvis seems to now regret this rewrite, recently describing “Glory Days” as “about nothing really.” I strongly beg to differ. The song is arguably one of Pulp’s most resonant and poignant, a grand summation of life’s most mundane moments. Here; as much as any other song, Jarvis posits that the most insignificant parts of existence can be fraught with odd poetry and meaning. The song is filled with casual desperation and procrastination, only to realize that the waiting was, in fact, the real point of it all. The song culminates with a deeply impassioned plea – perhaps to himself – to commit these crucial trivialities for posterity.

These glory days can take their toll

So catch me now

Before I turn to gold.

Yeah, we'd love to hear your story

Just as long as it tells us where we are

That where we are is where we're meant to be.

Cocaine Socialism

2008-05-22T22:40:00.001-04:00

It would’ve been one hell of a comeback single -- a five-minute exegeses detailing the corroded state of British politics. It was Pulp’s most ambitious recording to date, with the band sparing no expense in order to realize their withering vision.

But instead, it was shelved, then used to form the basis of a wholly different song, then released in a tapered-down mix as a b-side. Nine years later, the “Proper Version” of “Cocaine Socialism” finally gained official release on the This Is Hardcore reissue.

In recent years, Jarvis has expressed ambivalence about this track’s ultimate fate. While he’s voiced an understandable concern about the song’s musical resemblance to “Common People,” other comments have been more ambiguous. “The basic truth was that I didn’t have the stomach for it anymore,” he says in his liner notes.

It’s a shame, because the fact of the matter is: “Cocaine Socialism” is one of the band’s most significant and accomplished tracks. Jarvis describes the sort of pitch-lines he and other rock celebrities of the time were fielding from Tony Blair minions with some of his most savage bon mots. “You must be a socialist/ ‘Cause you’re always off out on the piss.” The band accompanies him with arena-rock that aims to draw real blood. On the “Proper Version,” garish-sounding horns and backing vocalists are kept high in the mix. These accoutrements manage to make doubly clear the song’s angry vision.

Although it was written in response to UK-specific, now-dated brands like Britpop and New Labour, it’s still relevant in the way it pinpoints the moment when a lifestyle or set of beliefs becomes just another commodity. Idealism is a frail thing, this song says, and in politics it’s almost inevitably usurped for nefarious ends. (“You can be just what you want to be/ Just as long as you don’t try to compete with me.”) Anyone following the current U.S. presidential race with any vested interest would be wise to consider this song’s cautionary tale.

The next post will discuss the song that “Cocaine Socialism” turned into.

P.T.A. (Parent Teacher Association)

2008-05-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

Depicting a teacher (or headmaster) lusting after a student, “P.T.A.” is quite possibly Pulp’s most socially irresponsible song. But Jarvis’ lyric also lingers on the protagonist’s inexperience and feelings of missed opportunities. Plus, the song features a spoken-word interlude, with Jarvis as the teacher and Candida as the student. But “P.T.A.” ultimately suffers for the same reasons as another Different Class b-side, “Ansaphone.” The pop melody is bright, the production is big, but there’s something hollow at the core. The song needs the artiness that Pulp usually brings to the table.

In Many Ways

2008-05-18T16:25:00.001-04:00

If nothing else, It is a triumphant testament to the endless possibilities of reverb. On “In Many Ways,” the opening riff sounds like gossamer, and the folky melody could be something you’d hear at a guitar mass. (Fortunately, you can’t say that about any other song in Pulp’s discography.) For balance, the lyrics are as scathing as It gets. “Hey, you’re treading on my life,” Jarvis coos at the beginning. He goes on to sketch out a relationship’s eventual, painful dissolution. “Pleasure now will justify our love/ See, I even called it ‘love.’”

Monday Morning

2008-05-12T20:46:00.001-04:00

It’s songs like this – especially this song, as a matter of fact – that make me wonder how Different Class ever got designated as Pulp’s crowd-pleasing album. The jittery, nervous ska rhythm (I’m fairly certain it’s the only time the band tackled that genre) is a perfect match for Jarvis’ lyric. It’s one of his most sardonic, desperate works, a savage and concise catalog of newfound adult freedoms becoming mind-numbing, soul-killing routine. It’s an anthem for anyone fresh out of college, with a go-nowhere job to support a pointlessly busy, alcohol-soaked social life. The fatalism is crushing, but totally dead-on. “Is this the light of a new day dawning?/ A future bright that you can walk in?/ No, it’s just another Monday morning.” Explain to me again how songs from the subsequent album like this were considered a departure.

This TV performance contains some alternate lyrics. Enjoy.

Acrylic Afternoons

2008-05-08T20:41:00.000-04:00

This song, along with “My Legendary Girlfriend” and “Babies” probably did most of the groundwork for establishing Jarvis as the unlikely sex symbol (a status he’s still trying to live down). But this tale of an amorous couple set against a tableau of suburban normalcy also alludes to something less physical. Like many similar Pulp songs, there exists the aching need for escape, as two lovers try to find a way out from the doldrums. Jarvis just wants to stay with her, “lying under the table together with you now.” It’s the tension between this desire and the one behind the song’s innuendos that gives the song an unmistakable edge, making it of a piece with the band’s body of work.

“Acrylic Afternoons” also serves as the name of one of the finest Pulp fansites around.

My Body May Die

2008-05-07T22:17:00.001-04:00

A true lost classic, “My Body May Die” points to a tantalizing, fascinating direction the band never fully explored. Jarvis hands the bulk of vocal duties over to long-running chorale group The Swingle Singers – the song is in fact credited to “Pulp vs. The Swingle Singers.” Underneath a bed of eerie harps and synths, the group intones a weave of verses, ruminating on love and loss. Jarvis emerges mid-way to intone “You thought I would leave you/ I could never leave you/ Wherever you go I will be by your side,” over and over. It never sounds like a threat, but it certainly is a most uneasy kind of reassurance. The performance is one of the band’s most powerfully subtle – take note of Nick Banks’ delicate drum work, miles away from the hard, arena-honed rhythms latter-day Pulp specialized in. It’s one of the band’s most challenging works, lyrically mysterious and musically unexpected. One hopes that Jarvis (if not Pulp as a whole) someday decides to pick up where it left off.

The song was written for the 2000 British television series Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) (a remake of the late-‘60s show of the same name). Songs like this indicate how rewarding a Deluxe Edition of We Love Life could be.

Your Sister's Clothes

2008-05-05T19:54:00.002-04:00

"Your Sister’s Clothes” features the sisters from “Babies” four years on. Now the younger sibling finally gets her revenge for earlier years.
--From the liner notes to The Sisters EP

Without that synopsis, you might have trouble connecting “Your Sister’s Clothes” to Pulp’s breakthrough song, even though “Babies” precedes it on The Sisters EP. Nevertheless, the rather threadbare, enigmatic plot (a string of innuendos, really) of “Your Sister’s Clothes” cannot detract from the song’s power, nor the overall brilliance of The Sisters EP. Here, the band pumps up a kitchen-sink epic to almost ridiculous heights, handily avoiding queasy melodrama. Candida Doyle and Russell Senior are in especially fine form here, concocting an ingenious arrangement of keyboards and vari-speed violin. Their instruments seem to move in symbiosis, working together to cover all the right frequencies and plot points.

They Suffocate at Night

2008-04-30T22:55:00.000-04:00

On the final track of Freaks – and the last single by that lineup of the band – the minor-key indie fumblings suddenly gain the low-rent grandeur the band must’ve been striving for that whole time. It’s hard to say what exactly is different, but there’s a melancholy that arises here – different from mere dreariness – that’s quite affecting. The arrangement is quite perfect, mixing organ, plucked violin and a steady, delicate rhythm. Jarvis’ vocals still lack confidence and certitude, but even that’s not really a drawback. The lyrics detail love gone horribly wrong once again, but every line is well-chosen, filling in the right details while still leaving room for ambiguity.
During the filming of a video for this track, apparently the band had some sort of falling out and “broke up,” although soon enough, Jarvis and Russell Senior would put together a new Pulp, eventually bringing Candida Doyle back into the fold as well. Rather miraculously, the video is available on YouTube.

Weeds

2008-04-28T22:58:00.000-04:00

… and we’re back. The opening track on the final Pulp album, “Weeds” attempts to cover a lot of ground, not always successfully. The opening acoustic guitar riff hints at a more pastoral direction from the band, but within a few seconds, we’re back in vaguely Different Class-like anthemic territory. At any rate, both musical decisions seem chosen to move the band as far away from This Is Hardcore as possible.

The song finds Jarvis veering back into “Mis-Shapes” territory, a little strange given his vocal disdain for that song. Here, he wants to write about different kinds of misfits as beleaguered but undaunted. He can’t be faulted for lack of ambition – attempting to tie confused young urbanites and council estate residents into his central botanical metaphor. But something’s missing; the song is rousing and melodic, but it doesn’t quite gel with Jarvis’ concepts. Frankly, “Mis-Shapes” did it better.

The Day After the Revolution

2008-04-03T21:43:00.004-04:00

At the very end of This Is Hardcore, the band makes an abrupt turn from matters of debauchery and depression to socio-political concerns. It’s so sudden, this change of tact, that a casual listener could easily neglect it. But it’s there, and the soured, world-weary but wiser tone that closes the album only gives it more depth. Like many left-leaning Brit musicians of the time, Jarvis quickly lost hope in Tony Blair’s “New Labour” brand; “The Day After the Revolution” takes solace in the belief that the most significant paradigm shifts will occur in secret, unbeknownst to the masses. Similarly, you can hear the track – despite its hard-charging, echoing guitars and drums – signify the band’s retreat back to the fringes, away from celebrity and all its bummer after-effects. It’s the anti-“Mis-Shapes” in a way.

Now all the breakdowns and nightmares look small
Now we decided not to die after all
Because the meek shall inherit absolutely nothing at all
If you stopped being so feeble, you could have so much more

“Yeah we made it,” Jarvis exclaims at the end, and the relief is palpable, especially given the nightmare scenarios of the previous songs. He then launches into a monologue (“Sheffield is over/ The Fear is over/ Guilt is over…”) that echoes John Lennon’s “I don’t believe in…” litany in “God.” On the UK version of TIH, the song then concludes with nearly ten minutes of a single synth note, punctuated by a single “bye-bye” from Jarvis near the end. It may have been a stunt instituted by La Monte Young fan Mark Webber. If, like me, you’re lucky enough to have the U.S. version, the song fades out before all that. Instead we get a top-notch bonus track, “Like a Friend” – although for the purposes of this blog, we won’t be treating that as a track from this album.

(Note: I’m moving this month, so my time and/or internet will be limited. So Music From a Bachelor’s Den will be on a lighter publishing schedule for April. I fully expect things to go back to normal once May rolls around.)

Born to Cry

2008-03-26T23:25:00.000-04:00

This song can be found on the soundtrack to the Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts rom-com Notting Hill; but only on the UK version. And, oh yes, the song is not heard at any point during the film Notting Hill. What else do you need to know? Pulp’s then-touring guitarist Richard Hawley receives a co-writing credit on this song with the band, and you can hear glimpses of his subsequent, well-regarded career as an Orbison-esque balladeer. Listening to “Born to Cry,” you can also tell the band was between the heavily produced This Is Hardcore and the slightly more organic We Love Life. It’s certainly not the most distinctive, idiosyncratic song Pulp ever wrote, but you can feel Jarvis work through the power-ballad clichés, just so he can deliver his ode to the chronically morose: “Darling, you and I/ We were born to cry.”

She's Dead

2008-03-25T22:36:00.001-04:00

Another lush yet grim ballad, one that catches the band in something of a transitional period. The execution is more expert than something like “Little Girl (With Blue Eyes),” yet we’re not quite in the polished, near-bombastic territory of, say, “Sylvia.” The band’s not at the point yet where they can afford a real string section, but the synthesized backing just makes the song more poignant, symbolic of something that’s nearly obtainable, but just out of reach. Herein, Jarvis mourns over a broken relationship so thoroughly that it doesn’t matter to him whether she is in fact deceased or just out of his life. It’s all the same to him at this point.

Mis-Shapes

2008-03-24T22:46:00.003-04:00

At some point, Jarvis grew to regret writing this rallying cry of a hit single. The curdled after-effects of Britpop-era celebrity rendered this song hopelessly naïve in his mind. He so disliked this song that he pointedly left it off the band’s 2002 Hits compilation, causing a minor kerfuffle amongst some die-hard fans. Of course, I think he doth protest too much. Not only is “Mis-Shapes” a genre-defining anthem and perfect album opener, but it’s also filled with some real melancholy. I’ve always heard a desperate catch in Jarvis’ voice on lines like “Oh, we weren’t supposed to be” and “Brothers, sisters, can’t you see?” When he delivers the chorus’ pay-off line – “We’ll use the one thing we’ve got more of/ That’s our minds” – for the last time in the song, he’s followed by a dying synthesizer squall, as it to signify that there’s much, much more to this story. And indeed, the rest of Different Class goes on to show just how uneasy young adulthood can get for even the most defiant of nonconformists.

The story doesn’t end there. At some point in the 21st Century, a popular New York DJ night called “Mis-Shapes” began. I have no concrete evidence of my own, but in some circles the night has became fairly synonymous with hipster douchebaggery. For good or ill, the photograph book commemorating this night features some text from Jarvis, who DJed there along with Steve Mackey early on. Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that victory can be pulled from even the most dire of events, and maybe all this will have softened Jarvis’ stance towards the song “Mis-Shapes” by the time Pulp launch a reunion of some sort.

Watch the video for the song here.

Inside Susan

2008-03-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

The second part of the Inside Susan song series – part one was covered here. The title song, if you will, is another peppy, synth-driven pop song, this time serving as backing for one of Jarvis’ spoken monologues. He writes about teenage parties and make-out sessions with sense of sadness. By now, we’re getting a sense of Susan as someone with a promise that is never adequately realized. But overall this isn’t one of his most compelling stories, with a few metaphors that uncharacteristically go clunk.

Tomorrow Never Lies

2008-03-17T23:50:00.000-04:00

I’ve spent my share of time trying to distill the specifics code that make a perfect Bond theme. It’s not an exact science, I’ve figured that much out. You need to pay respect to the classic Bond motifs created by John Barry; but any fool knows that. It’s the other elements that are slightly less tangible. For example, you can be reverent towards Bond music, while being tongue-in-cheek towards the whole Bond persona. Additionally, your song needs to sound great coming after the chase sequence it is inevitably following – to that end, you should either try to amp up the excitement further, or provide a dramatic change of pace with a luxuriously unfolding ballad.

Of course, I’m not exactly unbiased, but Pulp proved their mastery of the above, plus a whole lot more, with their submission for the 1997 Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. They go the ballad route, but it’s the kind of swelling, vaguely operatic affair that sounds perfect coming after a ski chase-turned-seduction-scene, or however the hell this one opened. Listening to the song, you practically see the title credits projected on a woman’s torso. Jarvis’ lyrics slyly celebrate Bond as a defiant man who triumphs against the insurmountable and deadly odds through a mix of undeniable skill and devil-may care outlook. In a less specific light, though, he could just as easily be singing out about another misfit who’s ready to think of oneself in terms of grandeur, which makes this, thematically, a classic Pulp song.

It also came in handy, since the song was rejected by the Bond people. According to Wikipedia, a dozen artists were invited to audition a Bond theme. In addition to Pulp, some fairly off-beat artists participated, including St. Etienne and Marc Almond. In the end, the producers chose the safest, most internationally famous artist, Sheryl Crow. Undaunted, Pulp made a simple tweak to the title and used it as a b-side. On the deluxe edition of This Is Hardcore, you can find the band’s demo with the original title.

Someone Like the Moon

2008-03-12T22:13:00.001-04:00

Candida’s slow, simple organ repetitions sound like Phillip Glass gone glam. Appropriately for a song about night, the music is twinkling yet mysterious, evocative of a half-light that renders things only partially visible. The lyrics find Jarvis in kitchen-sink mode – if nothing else, His ‘n’ Hers is the band’s most suburban album. Another sympathetic portrait of a lost, broken-hearted woman, “Someone Like the Moon” takes an opposite tack from a song like “Lipgloss.” Both songs are strangely uplifting; but while “Lipgloss” merges dead-on observations with soaring, upbeat pop, the more meandering melody of “Someone Like the Moon” pays respect to the mysterious, intangible aspects of life’s drudgery.

Paula

2008-03-10T21:35:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the breezy melody, cheesy arrangement, and nasty but rather half-hearted lyrics, you can’t help but think Pulp just needed to get this song out of their system during the Different Class writing sessions. After all, they’d committed themselves to making pop songs as succinct and unpretentious as possible. “Paula” – which of course was abandoned after the demo phase – sounds like they were still on their way towards mastering the genre. Who knows, maybe this song got Jarvis thinking about a girl he once knew named Deborah…

Master of the Universe

2008-03-08T22:09:00.002-05:00

While possessing an energy that’s more focused than most Freaks tracks, “Master of the Universe” still leans heavily on goth overtones. Still, glimmers of the Cocker wit show up here (“I am the Master of the Universe/ And I’ve got so big it hurts”). In later interviews, Jarvis would point out the incongruousness of the song. “I liked writing ‘Master of the Universe’ while being on the dole and not being the master of anything at all,” he told MOJO Magazine in 2003. “It was the winter I’d fallen out of the window – I was stuck in a wheelchair and my mother’s watching Lovejoy. So it had a certain grim humour.” That explains the S&M imagery of the song, as master morphs into debased servant. The song was released as a single in a “sanitized” version with toned-down lyrics. (Most notably, the word “masturbates” became “vegetates.”) That is the version that serves as the sorta-title track to the compilation of mid-‘80s Pulp singles and b-sides.

Theme from Peter Gunn

2008-03-03T23:05:00.000-05:00

“We’re going to attempt to play a cover version, which we’re not very good at usually.” With those inspiring words, Jarvis opens the band’s set for a radio concert commemorating John Peel’s 40th year as a broadcaster. He goes on to introduce the song as a favorite of Peel’s, but instead of Pulp’s version of “Teenage Kicks,” we get this skewed yet rocking interpretation of the classic TV theme. The rhythm section, led by Richard Hawley’s expert rendering of the opening rockabilly riff, keeps things tight and rocking, allowing (presumably) Jarvis and Candida to deconstruct the song with noisy, trashy synths. I think you can also hear Mark Webber pluck out some electric piano parts early in the rendition before unleashing inspired splurges of abstract guitar riffs.

This House is Condemned

2008-02-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

The final Pulp song to feature a lead vocal from Russell Senior, “This House is Condemned” also represents the band’s most committed attempt at acid house. These two facts seem unrelated, as Russell’s disengaged, stentorian spoken-word track exists on a wholly different planet from the busily computerized music. Imagine New Order if Ian Curtis had lived. They seem to be taking the word “House” rather literally. The storyline is another saga of low-income housing (see also “Mile End” and “Deep Fried in Kelvin”). Rather than try to compete with Jarvis with cuttingly witty observations, Russell gets his point across through repetition. I wouldn’t call this song a failure, but it does definitely end Separations on a note of “whaaa?” Even though the prior three tracks also featured plenty of digitally triggered backing tracks, the song still sticks out of what was otherwise their most fully realized, cohesive album to date.

Live On

2008-02-26T20:36:00.000-05:00

“Live On” was performed on radio once and never “properly” recorded, sending it around the bootleg circuit. It’s another His ‘n’ Hers-era gem, proving again that the band had more great songs than it knew what to do with by this time. The band has mastered the effortless disco groove, insistent, cheesy keyboards and charmingly amateurish wah-wah guitar riffs. All of these provide a reliable support system for Jarvis to muse and work himself into a bother about, in this case, the lingering and torturing memories of long-gone lover. The band’s performance only gets tighter and tenser as Jarvis increasingly seems to lose his shit. These kinds of arrangements would soon prove to be very rewarding for Pulp.

Dishes

2008-02-25T23:01:00.000-05:00

After the opening panic attack of “The Fear,” this song comes as palpable relief and proof that This Is Hardcore isn’t just about cold sweats, panic and loathing, but the sobering realization that, like it or not, life trundles along anyway. The loungy balladry of the music helps relax Jarvis, who goes to great, witty lengths to de-mystify himself. Not only performing the most mundane of household tasks, he’s also willing to go through whatever prosaic mating ritual you’d require – he knows he’s not God’s gift to women. Even when he risks some maudlin lyrical passages near the end – musing about heaven and earth, and making the best out of the latter – the sweetly sweeping music, with a heartrending string section rising, helps the song stay on the genuine and touching side.

Here’s a TV performance of the song.

Bob Lind (The Only Way is Down)

2008-02-20T22:20:00.000-05:00

The opening riff brings to mind “Show Me” by The Pretenders. But in every other way “Bob Lind” is a song that could only come from Pulp. The buoyant melody and arrangement are supported by a lyric that describe people at their seemingly lowest point – desperate and hopeless. But Jarvis also posits that these moments are when people can “fall in love again.” He drives the point home in the final verse, one of his most nakedly emotional: “When you walked into the room/ I could not breathe, I could not speak.” The lines that follow find Jarvis offering himself wholly and honestly. It’s genuinely touching and not at all sappy, not with lines like “Oh no, I am a fuck-up/ Just the same as you.” The song celebrates fuck-ups, because when you reach that state, you’re more likely to open yourself up.
Bob Lind was a soft-pop singer in the ‘60s. Jarvis explains his connection to the song at the bottom of this page.

F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.

2008-02-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

For a time, I found this bump-and-grind opus to be the odd song out on Different Class (see also “Seductive Barry” on This is Hardcore). Then I focused on the key line of the verses: “It’s so cold.” The seduction scene in this song isn’t unattractive and disillusioning, but it’s focused on the unfamiliarity of it all, the sense of heading into uncharted territory, not just physically but emotionally as well. In that light, this is yet another song from Different Class’ second half that perfectly captures the uneasiness of the journey towards maturity, a trip always fraught with potential strife. (It could be argued, then, that in the three songs that follow, closing the album, the disenchantment truly sets in.)

Musically, “F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.” stands as the album’s most overt lunge towards electronic experimentation, a direction in which the band frequently made overtures without ever really fully committed. Ultimately, they were always a song-and-lyric-driven act. I particular like this live version from the We Love Life tour.

97 Lovers

2008-02-18T21:11:00.000-05:00

Jarvis’s liner-note description (from the Dogs Are Everywhere EP) sums it up best: Why 97? It could just have easily been 970 or 9,700. Just take a short walk around town and you soon lose count of the deformities. By the way, what's that growing on your back? In other words, this is another of the band’s goth workouts, with creaking violin and relentless kettle drums. The rudimentary Farfisa chords that open the song would later be reused for a more upbeat end on “O.U. (Gone, Gone).” As Jarvis’ note implies, the purpose of his rant is obscure if not completely irrelevant. It’s more about the overall feel of doom, like a permanent fog settling over Sheffield. Still, the song gets points for the effortlessly creepy image of a picture of Roger Moore that hangs over the bed of a couple living a textbook example of domestic discontent.

Whiskey in the Jar

2008-02-12T22:47:00.001-05:00

Frequently during the ‘90s, Pulp recorded Black Sessions for the France Inter radio station. Back then, bands were asked to do cover songs for these sessions, to give listeners something special, I suppose. Pulp often rose to the occasion with some truly surprising choices, such as the Thin Lizzy version of the traditional Irish ballad “Whiskey in the Jar.” It’s not a perfect fit, but Jarvis’ acoustic guitar and Russell’s violin helped give the band an entry point to the song’s folky lilt. And the song’s themes of desire, deception and murder certainly fit with many of Jarvis’ lyrical preoccupations.

This radio performance subsequently came out on the Childline benefit compilation and as the b-side to the French “Common People” single. However, the best cover song Pulp ever recorded for a Black Session was their stunningly apt reading of Frankie Valli’s “The Night,” which unfortunately has yet to be officially released.

I Want You

2008-02-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

The guitars intertwine agreeably and the backing vocals campily intone “ba-ba-ba-ba.” Here’s another Freaks track that feints towards pop. Nevertheless, Jarvis promises a scenario of mutual dissatisfaction, to put it mildly. Romantic obsession curdles into boredom by the second verse already. And, once the relationship has reached its inevitable conclusion (“You’ve got to stamp upon its head,” Jarvis instructs), endless regret will inevitably follow, which soon morphs back into romantic obsession. And we can where this is headed.

Not that the band was faring well in the music scene at this point anyway, but it probably didn’t help that Freaks came out the same year as Elvis Costello’s “I Want You,” an even more fascinating, slow-motion crawl through desire unhinged. Pulp’s song sounds positively breezy in comparison. Although it’s worth nothing that the demo of Pulp’s “I Want You” first came out on a compilation cassette in 1984, but I think it’s safe it reached a limited audience this way. “I Want You” is also one of the few Freaks-era songs that the band performed occasionally in the '90s and beyond.

Babies

2008-02-05T21:36:00.000-05:00

It’s been quite a while since I’ve tackled any of Pulp’s truly definitive songs, so I figured I’d better get a move on.

“Babies” is such a potent pop song, it gave the band two lifts into orbit -- first as a successful indie single in ’92; then given a slightly different, brighter mix for the ’94 single which became their first UK top 20 hit. And make no mistake, even from my American perspective “Babies” sounds like a landmark hit because it marked their most perfect pop thus far. Simply put, every single part of the song is a genius pop hook, from the brilliantly rudimentary opening guitar hook (written by drummer Nick Banks) onward.

But you can’t discount that lyric, which perfectly, wittily captures the collision of lust, discovery and confusion of adolescence. And there are sisters. Plus, with Jarvis spending much of the song hiding in a wardrobe, you can think of it as Pulp’s own “Trapped in the Closet,” as a friend of mine once remarked. (“Babies” has but one sequel, which we’ll get to eventually.)

Appropriately, there two separate videos for “Babies,” a way-low-budget one and a glossier, mainstream-ready one. Plus, this strange “spoken word” version. Keep looking around YouTube and you’ll find plenty of live and TV performances as well.

Turkey Mambo Momma

2008-02-04T23:36:00.000-05:00

Dismiss this as a novelty tune, thanks to the title, at your own peril. This entry from the band’s fabled first Peel Session in ’81 knowingly borrows a xylophone motif from Violent Femmes’ “Gone Baby Gone,” but that’s not all. Like that famed first album from Gordon Gano et al, ‘Turkey Mambo Momma” is thick with heady sexual paranoia. Detailing some sort of encounter in Seychelles (an island in Africa and popular tourist spot), the song at times verges on a delirious parody of harlequin romance novels. Jarvis ends the tale with a typically morbid flourish. “Impaled on the rocks as she tears me in two/ At last I’ve found the answer, and the answer is you.” In light of a song like this, the naïvely romantic tone Jarvis pitched on It in 1983 sounds more and more like a mere aberration.

It's a Dirty World

2008-01-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

Supposedly, this is the only bona fide Pulp outtake – a finished song from recording sessions (not a demo) that did not make it onto an album, b-side, soundtrack or compilation. Recently, Jarvis has surmised that the song should have made its way onto This Is Hardcore, and it’s hard to disagree.
The dense, clattering arrangement recalls Tears for Fears’ “Shout,” while the lyrics allude to Van Halen’s “Jump” (“With your back up against the cigarette machine/Well, it’s bad for your health, if you know what I mean”). It’s the perfect backdrop for Jarvis’ droll descriptions of lustful hysteria. To sum, Jarvis meets a dancer whose act then causes the building they’re in to literally burn to ground. And that's when he realizes he’s finally found someone quite special.

Roadkill

2008-01-29T22:37:00.000-05:00

Memories of a failed relationship dart in and out of the songs on Pulp’s last album. The subject receives its most concentrated and most pained airing in “Roadkill.” The imagery here is devastatingly personal, with Jarvis lingering on the most mundane of memories: “The pale blue nightdress,” “A subway token from your ma,” “The way you drove your car.” These incredibly trivial things suddenly bear unbearable weight, and it is Jarvis’ peculiar genius that he takes this pretty shopworn theme and makes it so palpable, so full of raw feeling. And, oh yeah, if the song wasn’t depressing enough, he throws in an image of a dead deer in the road, just so you’re sure what single life feels like to him. The band accompanies him with the album’s sparsest arrangement, and the skeletal guitar lines and ambient backgrounds are deeply apt.

Street Lites

2008-01-24T21:44:00.001-05:00

Another song so effortless, delicate and captivating, it’s still pretty amazing that the band regarded stuff like this as mere b-side material. The music is fragile yet precise – a simple, repetitive organ line, violin plucks and brushed drums. Jarvis’ lyric makes clear the illicitness nature of this love affair, but there is an unmistakable undertone of romance. “Street Lites,” the focus is ultimately on the two lovers’ stealthily finding shelter from a prosaic and uncaring world. “I want to catch you unawares,” Jarvis says at one point, and this song can have a similar effect of the listener, subtly enveloping you in its unmistakable, palpable atmosphere.

TV Movie

2008-01-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

Opening with a mix of sci-fi synth noise and Jarvis’ campfire acoustic guitar, “TV Movie” emerges as the least adorned song on This Is Hardcore. The band still can’t quite resist adding plenty of production candy gloss along the way, although Nick Banks’ drums have a naturalistic sound lacking on the rest of the album. The opening verse finds Jarvis laboring a tad too hard to reach his punch line in comparing his life to made-for-the-small-screen dross. But it’s worth it for the song’s climax, where the string section swells, and his voice hits that ache in his upper register, as he makes every effort to finally do away with any semblance of cleverness, to state his loneliness as simply and directly as possible.

Separations

2008-01-18T22:40:00.001-05:00

The song opens with another of Russell’s Euro-folk violin flourishes. Soon he’s surrounded by a mass of sampled, treated orchestral sounds. Jarvis sings dramatically of a woman divided from her lover. Two minutes in, we suddenly segue to a hilariously cheap synth rhythm, and the song suddenly morphs into a brutally efficient tango. Now Jarvis describes the man in the severed relationship, trying to keep up a jaunty façade to little avail. He’s just as haunted by her memory. He’s another Jarvis character who’s making out that he’s okay when he’s not. He’s also another figure in the Pulp canon that’s attempting to escape his past by heading to a new town. Both the man and woman are haunted by the memories of each other, as their surroundings – especially the hovering moon and night – mock them. “Separations” brilliantly captures the Pulp’s ability to shift scenery using words and music.

Joking Aside

2008-01-15T23:53:00.000-05:00

The fetching melody and cello counterpoint help distract you from realizing there’s something quite mysterious about this song. The words “Joking Aside” do not appear at all in the song; it's more Jarvis’ attempt to, joking aside, talk about a problem sincerely. Nevertheless, he manages to get through the four-plus minutes of the song without ever concretely addressing what exactly the problem is. Instead, he indulges in plenty of neurotic musings, constantly mulling one angle over another. One line in the chorus – “I’d like to turn you over/ to see what’s on your other side” – points to a romantic situation (or something more provocative). But his self-exhortations regarding “my present situation” and “these pursuits I might try” suggest the song could equally be about his ambivalence regarding a career in music and even the slowly creeping feeling that he may one day need to get out of Sheffield.

Ladies' Man

2008-01-14T23:43:00.000-05:00

One of the band’s most seductive creations gets put through the Hardcore treatment. The beautiful mix of synths, electric piano and electronic drums and gracefully unfolding melody are supported by Jarvis singing the entire lyric through a vocoder. Such a device renders the lyric – filled with seemingly passionate come-ons – eerie and robotic. It may be an obvious trick, but damn does it work. It renders literal Jarvis’ fears about the pointlessness and banality of uttering such phrases again and again. “Ladies’ Man” is of a piece with other Pulp songs of the period that view the mating game with an increasingly caustic eye. It is also the second Pulp song (after “We Can Dance Again”) to quote a lyric from Blondie's "Atomic."

Something Changed

2008-01-06T23:40:00.000-05:00

This is probably the only Pulp song that would be even remotely appropriate at a wedding reception. “Something Changed” occurs in the middle of Different Class, the last of three songs that look at romance from varying angles. While the song takes the most unambiguously optimistic view of love that Jarvis ever ventured since the release of It, the song still shows plenty of jaggedly neurotic edges. He cannot help but wonder about all the small changes that could’ve occurred to prevent him from meeting the woman he’s singing to. (He could’ve stayed in for the night, she could’ve visited someone else.) At the same time, he wonders if they were fated to be together, by some benevolent higher power arranging romantic connections via timetable. It’s up to the woman to dissuade him from these worrying thoughts.

Although Jarvis suggested that this acoustic-driven ballad did in fact date back to the It era, Mark Sturdy was unable to find any concrete evidence in his Pulp bio Truth and Beauty. The video can be seen here.

Anorexic Beauty

2008-01-02T22:11:00.000-05:00

One of the few Pulp originals to contain no lyrical input from Jarvis, “Anorexic Beauty” features wordsmithery courtesy of one David Kurley, another Sheffield-area musician. Sung by Jarvis and Russell in unison, the song just might be the band’s most politically incorrect (along with “P.T.A.”). Still, the imagery is impressively disturbing, I suppose, and the band’s trashy garage groove is charmingly amateurish and catchy all the same. The song was dedicated to Lena Zavaroni.

There Was

2007-12-30T22:30:00.000-05:00

Tucked away as the b-side to a failed attempt during the ‘80s to sound like Wham called “Everybody’s Problem” lies a beguiling, eerily captivating piece that stands as Jarvis’ first sublime song. A waltz that sounds effortless, yet is quite rhythmically challenging when you really listen, the song also contains some of the most impressive vocal harmonies on a Pulp song, as Jarvis and his sister Saskia create a slow-building round choral that reveals a sudden complexity. The musical backing is a perfectly sparse blend of electric guitar and keyboards. Jarvis sings about an attempt to hold on to last few embers of a fading relationship. As the title indicates, the song is fixated on the past and the need to bring it back. “Don’t let it die away,” he pleads. The music seems to provide the hope he seeks, making this ballad strangely uplifting.

In 2000, “Everybody’s Problem” and “There Was” appeared on the soundtrack to something called Schooldisco, a film regarding which I can little information. But it appears that the soundtrack is still in print, if this is any indication.

Joyriders

2007-12-29T22:51:00.000-05:00

Another stellar opening track. As the first song on Pulp’s first major-label full-length, “Joyriders” takes advantage of the wider canvas without ever overdoing it. The instruments, captured with newfound confidence, seem to burst out of the speakers. Jarvis’ portrayal of bored lowlifes is at first sheer mockery, but with every minute it shades into darker and darker territory. In fact, in the last few minutes, he’s mainly just repeating the same few lines over and over. But his relentless recital of stolen cars, trips to a reservoir and a tragically doomed girl – as the band’s backing gets more measured and careful – makes the song become suddenly and powerfully very sinister.

Watch a live version here.

Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)

2007-12-22T17:12:00.000-05:00

A seminal moment in the Pulp discography. The first release of the post-It band, “Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)” unveils a new lineup with an almost wholly different aesthetic.

For the first time on record, Jarvis is supported by two key collaborators: keyboardist Candida Doyle and guitarist-violinist Russell Senior. Doyle plays what would become her trademark instrument, the Farfisa organ. (She also provides one of her rare harmony vocal performances.) Meanwhile, Senior’s art-damaged avant garde impulses make an especially noteworthy mark here; what might have been another of Jarvis’ gentle, Velvet Underground-influenced ballads is given a stark undertow thanks to Russell’s queasily amateurish violin playing.

But Jarvis too has evolved on this song. After the fey innocence of It, the sharp, grim perspective of “Little Girl (With Blue Eyes)” is pretty shocking. “There’s a hole in your heart/And one between your legs,” he sings in the chorus. “You’ve never had to wonder which one he’s going to fill/In spite of what he said.” For the first time in his career, Jarvis has unveiled here his talent for a savage turn of phrase. Making the song even darker, Jarvis is singing here about his own mother, describing her pregnancy with him, which led to her marrying the father, a reportedly less-than-dependable man, and abandoning her aspirations to become an artist.

In the ‘90s and beyond, “Little Girl (With Blue Eyes) was possibly the early song the band played most often. Here is a performance by Jarvis, Candida, Russell and the rest of the Different Class-era lineup on British television.

The Birds in Your Garden

2007-12-17T20:33:00.000-05:00

In some circles, it’s considered that this warm, simply melodic song should have been the first single from We Love Life. But the charms of “The Birds in Your Garden” have largely passed me by. The scenario here is seemingly ripe with potential; a Disney-like chorus of feathered friends persuades Jarvis to make his way into a would-be paramour’s pants. But there’s something mind-numbingly predictable about this acoustic-driven, sweeping ballad. The song lacks the lyrical nuance or, more importantly, musical surprises that Pulp can usually be counted on providing. It winds up sounding like little more than a rewrite of “Something Changed.”

Frightened

2007-12-11T22:31:00.000-05:00

Described by Jarvis as “His ‘n’ Hers” meets “The Fear,” “Frightened” shares with the former an overriding paranoia regarding domesticity. And here, the occasional gothy chord change – occurring right between Freaks and This Is Hardcore – is used for an almost comic effect. Jarvis contrasts his fear over mundane materialism in the verses with his fear of his own raw desire. So, he’s a pretty fearful guy in the whole song, but what did you expect with that title? What really drives the song is the sweep of the melody and arrangement, pushing and pulling Jarvis from the brink several times during the song. Despite the strengths of the song, it’s easily surpassed by “His ‘n’ Hers,” which instead received release on the masterful Sisters EP.

Sylvia

2007-12-09T22:12:00.000-05:00

I always thought this would make a good concert opener for the band. It begins quietly and simply and ends with a rousing, epic finish, ushering the audience into the show. This doesn’t appear to have ever happened. Instead, “Sylvia” served as the last song of the main set during much of the This Is Hardcore tour. Shows what I know.

“Sylvia” also handily refutes Hardcore’s reputation as a morose, joyless sex-and-drugs-fest. Alright, so the song is still pretty morose, or at least a pained reflection on a failed relationship. Still, this is an unabashed power ballad, and maybe it’s a little too eager-to-please and sentimental, but there’s genuine emotion in the bombast. I heard this song once in an HMV store shortly after the album came out. It sounded oddly appropriate and even a little stirring there. There’s something especially memorable about Mark Webber’s Big Guitar Solo, which he executes with just a few notes.

There is, of course, a twist to the lyrics. Jarvis begins the song singing to a woman who reminds him of the title character. But soon enough he begins to address Sylvia directly. It entirely possible that he’s using the woman he’s just met as a proxy for the absent former lover, simply so he can say the things he was unable to tell her face to face.

Catcliffe Shakedown

2007-12-06T19:36:00.000-05:00

Nearly seven minutes long, all of them ridiculous. “Catcliffe Shakedown” is a long narrative of working-class follies, set to some the (intentionally?) cheesiest music the band ever wrote. (Why on earth does the track start and end with Candida playing the theme to Jaws?) Most of Jarvis’ observations are not exactly subtle; although, as always, his unwillingness to glorify the less savory aspects of proletarian life is commendable. Even with the comical melody, the burning desire to escape remains palpable. Nevertheless, it’s not too shocking that the song didn’t make it onto Different Class.

Incidentally, the band’s rehearsal space resided in Catcliffe, which is a village just outside Sheffield. A good enough reason to lead you to this.

Grandfather's Nursery

2007-12-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

As established earlier, the “Bad Cover Version” single served as the band’s swan song, in many ways. However, there were a few codas, subsequently. The strangest of these was certainly this song, not so much for the music itself, but more the event of the song’s emergence. For reasons no one seems to know, a professional-sounding 2000 demo recording of “Grandfather’s Nursery” popped up in 2002 as a free download on Amazon.com. (Sadly, the song is no longer available there.)

What fans heard, just as Pulp was bidding adieu, was another bottomless well of melancholy. Supported by gentle tremolo guitar and glass harmonica, Jarvis devises a series of metaphors for something once flowering that has ceased to live. It could be a relationship, it could be Sheffield, it could just be his state of mind about life in general. As with “Bad Cover Version” it became impossible to hear as it anything but a eulogy for a band that felt its zeitgeist slip away. The song is as morose as anything on This is Hardcore, but in its last moments rescues redemption. Jarvis takes a sailboat to reconnect with his “true love.” (Remember, the band’s first single was “My Lighthouse.”) Finally, he imagines an opportunity for a life-giving rain, as the band enters full-force in the final minutes, with an appropriately Beatlesque guitar line sharing center stage with Jarvis’ cries of “Here comes the rain.” The song successfully alchemizes the botanical themes of We Love Life, and one could argue it’s a more effortless mix of the band’s gentle and anthemic sides than anything on the album.

Just as perplexing as its Amazon.com appearance, “Grandfather’s Nursery” also appeared on a 2005 Spanish compilation entitled 100% Sinnamon.

Countdown

2007-11-29T23:04:00.000-05:00

“Countdown” has received more attention than most indie-era Pulp. That’s probably because it served as the title track to a well-publicized, double-disc anthology of early Pulp that came out in between Different Class and This is Hardcore. But “Countdown” is also a handy compendium of some of Jarvis’ most potent and resonant themes. Synths and programmed beats dominate, but with an extra dramatic edge. The lyrics convey a palpable sense of anxiety, commemorating Jarvis’ anguished decision in the late-‘80s to put the floundering band on hold while he went to London to study film. There are references to an unattainable woman, but it’s all a metaphor for the rapidly fading dreams of a career in music. All of his fears are cataloged; chief among them are the twin ideas that not only has he peaked at the age of 26, but because of a decision (to become a professional musician) he made nine years previous. “You’ve got to understand that I was 17!” he cries, incredulous that a decision he made at such a young age could possibly doom him to a life of impoverished obscurity and terminal unhappiness.

There are three mixes of the song. There’s the Separations version, an eight-minute single mix, and a radio edit of the single mix. If you hear Russell’s wah-wah guitar, it’s one of the single versions. The video here features the radio edit, which is probably my favorite.

Modern Marriage

2007-11-27T23:01:00.000-05:00

The funereal organ sounds like mid-‘80s Pulp, but the edgy humor in the lyrics is more in line with their ‘90s work. In the verses, Jarvis oozes faux-sincerity, working through his apparent wedding jitters with caustic ruminations on domesticity. Favorite line? Probably “I will never sleep with your friends – well, not your best friends.” Some of his observations on home consumerism connect this song to the great “His ‘n’ Hers.”

The band juxtaposes all this with an oddly repetitive, sing-songy chorus. It sounds like Jarvis is warbling from a lounge room in his own private hell. As usual, his liner notes provide key insights. “I am audibly inebriated on this recording which is probably because I was engaged at the time. The marriage never took place.”

The Mark of the Devil

2007-11-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

The Pulp disco beat makes its first appearance here. But the arrangement also makes room for the band’s mid-‘80s raison d’etre: that creaking, moodily gothic racket. Jarvis’ lyrics, describing a macabre kind of alienation and premature aging, are expertly written but hard to take in their relentless seriousness. Whether he’s condemning himself or someone he knows isn’t that relevant.

At some point in the ‘80s, the band partook in a low-low-budget documentary about Sheffield’s music scene. Bits of the doc wound up as bonus material on the band’s 2002 DVD Hits (still unreleased in the U.S.!). This clip features part of a live rendition of this song.

Pencil Skirt

2007-11-18T22:13:00.000-05:00

Different Class’ second song introduces the “sex-as-great-leveller” leitmotif that would garner the album a fair amount of notoriety. Here, Jarvis serves as a woman’s secret lover, and he revels in the wrongness of their act. For all its arch theatricality, this is a classic cheating song. Maybe some brave country singer will get around to covering it one day. The song’s finest moment comes in the third verse: “If you look under the bed, then I can see my house from here.” I’ve no idea what this literally means, but I think it’s alluding to the other Big Theme of the album – class. The narrator is probably poorer than the woman he’s addressing, and he’d rather not be reminded of that. The whole affair might be his way of trying to forget it.

Space

2007-11-15T22:05:00.000-05:00

Surrounded by squiggling synths and stylophones, Jarvis ruminates for a few minutes on what appears to be a promising drug-related experience and its woozy, regretful comedown. Or maybe it’s another metaphor for the unfulfilled promise of Pulp’s days in the ‘80s, and the possibility that the band’s fortunes are finally improving. Or maybe it’s a simple statement of purpose, as Jarvis renews his commitment to kitchen-sink drama, rather than lonely old self-pity. As the song reaches its climax, the rhythm section enters with some enthused bashing, showing off the band’s new instrumental focus as well.

And then there’s the alternate version, a soundcheck for a BBC performance that appears on the His ‘n’ Hers reissue. Different lyrics this time, as Jarvis explains in the liner notes: “I appear to be pretending to be an alien ready to prey on female Mancunians - oh dear.”

The Fear

2007-11-12T21:40:00.000-05:00

And so we come to the source of this blog’s name. When I wrote a little while back that “Love is Blind” is Pulp’s best album-opener, well, I misspoke slightly. Fact is, all the first tracks from Pulp’s ‘90s albums are near-equals in their amazing ability to set the tenors of their respective albums, setting the listeners on paths that move unexpectedly.

The title “The Fear” indicates that This Is Hardcore will tap the band’s dark side like no album since Freaks. The grinding guitars that open the track assure this much. But the band has changed, and grown immeasurably as writers, players and arrangers since Freaks. “The Fear” is equally a sign that This Is Hardcore will approach the subject of depression and fame hangovers from a multitude of angles.

And so, the song’s first two verses find Jarvis chronicling his breakdown in a dashing yet harrowing manner. It doesn’t sound like “someone losing the plot”; the song simply “is the sound of someone losing the plot” (italics mine). But as the song progresses, Jarvis adjusts the perspective only slightly, making a huge difference. Suddenly, he addresses the listeners, assuring them that, in time, the song will become a soundtrack for their own breakdowns. “The Fear” becomes oddly comforting. Emotional meltdowns come, emotional meltdowns go. The song remains.

“The Fear” also serves as a hallmark of the album’s sound, with its diamond-hard, unrelentingly expert production. And even in the throes of bad times, the band hasn’t lost their witty sense of rock culture. The backing singers on the chorus are all but imported straight from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (which was mixed by Hardcore’s producer, Chris Thomas).

Watch a performance of this song on Later with Jools Holland here.

We Can Dance Again

2007-11-11T21:36:00.000-05:00

For a long time one of the most notorious (among hardcore fans) of lost Pulp songs, “We Can Dance Again” was, like “The Boss,” initially known only through a widely bootlegged, amateurish live recording. Again like “The Boss,” the demo emerged thanks to the 2006 reissue campaign.

On both versions, despite largely different lyrics on each, “We Can Dance Again” is a celebratory misfit anthem, clearly in line with “Mis-Shapes.” The music is among the band’s brightest slices of nouveau new wave (listen for Jarvis’ quoting of Blondie’s “Atomic” near the end.) with a killer bridge to boot. On the demo version especially, the lyrics give a palpable sense that the band realized that the window for their triumph was, in truth, really small. And there are plenty of intimations of the years of struggle, fear and doubt that came prior to this one moment of elation.

So how did this song wind up in the vaults? As Russell Senior puts it in Truth and Beauty, “After seeming like it might be a single for a couple of weeks, it started looking like we were pasticheing ourselves.” But the song’s commercial appeal still lingers. According to Jarvis’ liner notes, “My Mum still asks me when we’re going to release it.”

Duck Diving

2007-11-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

During the We Love Life era, part of the point was for the band to get back to a more organic place, after the increasing production excesses of their major-label output thus far. It didn’t completely work out that way – We Love Life, while one of their warmer-sounding albums, still carries many hallmarks of the Big Rock sound. But one of the tracks the band toyed with live around this time, “Duck Diving” provides an intriguing side road the band could’ve explored. While Jarvis reads from a children’s story by Philippa Pearce (prefiguring the Jarvcasts), the band provides a softly repetitive electronic backing, with delicate synths to the fore. On We Love Life, Candida Doyle’s keyboards are pushed way back in the mix. This track suggests what the album might’ve sounded like had she been given a more prominent role, perhaps making the album a gentler version of His ‘n’ Hers and Different Class.

As for the story, it’s no surprise it would appeal to Jarvis. There are pinpointed details, and the narrator is a misfit child. Definitely of a piece with his usual lyrical concerns.