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.