97 Lovers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.