There's No Emotion

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.

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The Never-Ending Story

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.

They Suffocate at Night

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.

Master of the Universe

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.

I Want You

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.

Anorexic Beauty

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.

Being Followed Home

I’ve been pretty hard so far on Pulp’s second album, Freaks, it’s true. I do think that the album should be examined by scholars looking to see the effects of societal hostility on artistic temperments (maybe Richard Florida). However, for the rest of us, the album only offers badly recorded unpleasantness. The band members are quick to acknowledge this as well.

However, if there are a few songs on the album where everything comes together, one of them is undoubtedly “Being Followed Home.” As the opening sound effect of footsteps leads into a careful guitar line, the song is an excellent example of Pulp’s ability to create a vivid scenario with music. And this time, Jarvis has conceived an actual metaphor -- something few other Freaks songs contain -- to carry his fear and paranoia. The imagery here is fantastic; I’m especially fond of the attacker who “says something in a language I don’t understand.” But the song’s crowning moment is that it does end with the narrator’s attack. Rather, we move forward to some point later; the memories of the evening have faded, but the fear lingers. Adding to the spooky sense of mystery, I’m pretty certain Jarvis is addressing a number of people in this song; not just the ones who have followed him home, but someone else, someone he knows. This is someone else from his past that haunts him, reminding him of other bad choices and failed chances.

Fairground

The first voice you hear on the second Pulp album is not Jarvis’, but rather that of Russell Senior, who also wrote the lyrics. Everything on this cacophonous ode to circus freaks reeks of low-budget, b-movie doom. Russell’s stentorian vocals open the song: “As the signs outside proclaimed, ‘Nature sometimes makes a mistake.’” It’s pretty indicative of Freaks as a whole. At times, the band approaches these gloom-laden sagas so mirthlessly, it’s almost impossible not to laugh. Fortunately, “Fairground” is also one of the few songs on the album where the band seems to be enjoying themselves, attacking the demonic laughter in the choruses with palpable relish.

Jarvis may have passed on vocal and lyric duties to his second-in-command, but his stamp is on the song anyway. He provides some carny announcements near the song's end, and it’s probably no small deal that the song’s concept inspired the album’s title and overriding theme. (“It was called Freaks because I'd been out of school four years and lived this marginal life with no success,” he told an interviewer in 1994.) In “Fairground,” Russell spends much of the lyrics reflecting not on the deformed circus attractions, but a man who laughs not only at the freaks, but at Russell and his sister as well. It’s one of the moments on the album that fully embodies the band’s outsider status. Freaks is easily the most difficult album of Pulp’s career; I’m rarely able to listen to the whole thing myself. But I bet it’s as good as any document of what it was like to be weird, different and broke in England in the ‘80s.

Don't You Know

As close to pop as the Freaks album gets, “Don’t You Know” is almost snappy, thanks mainly to Candida’s memorable, simple piano hook. On one hand, Jarvis is still fixated on doomed relationships. “Don’t you know she could break you,” the chorus begins. “Every bone that’s inside of you?” But he spends much of the song advising someone (himself, maybe?) to try to see the positives. I think so, anyway. Read another way, he might just be saying that since you’re stuck here – “here” being both the relationship and Sheffield – you might as well make the best of things. Because, face it, you’re hopeless.

Life Must Be So Wonderful

Of course, you know, the title is meant sardonically. Like the other songs on Pulp’s difficult second album, Freaks, the mood here is dour, the imagery almost oppressive (“And now blind eyes watch you bleed/ You rot in your bedroom, you cry on the phone”). And Jarvis struggles to eke out a tune with his tight, two-note baritone voice. Maybe “sardonically” is the wrong word; it implies a certain amount of humor that’s actually in woefully short supply on this song.

Nevertheless, “Life Must Be So Wonderful” is no lost cause, not quite. Arguably the most impressive element is the rhythm supplied by then-drummer Magnus Doyle (brother of Candida). Whereas most of his stickwork was loose and haphazard, here Doyle cleverly utilizes supple, Al Green-style beats in an unlikely setting. And the rest of the band has already begun to hit upon a unique skill in dramatic sweep, as the song lurches from sweet to dissonant and back again.