Best Pulp Song You Never Heard

June 25, 2008 by Svetlana  Send to a Friend

(probably)…and no, it is NOT “this is hardcore” (for all those of you that saw the thumb and already sharpened your comment fingers). I’m talking about “Ladies man”, the B-side off of the UK single of “This is hardcore” (also pretty much the only B-side off of any UK single that I actually can roll off the top of my head)

Anyhoo, since the morning music picks are proving to be so popular (at least in my mind) I figured its a perfect opportunity to start spreading the seed of almost lost joys.

Here is the single cover. Flip it:

As with everything, (and every time you hear a great song) there is a story:

The year was 1997 and I was sent off to boarding school in England. “Different class” was my “coming of age” album back in Serbia in a sense that I read a review of it in a smuggled in NME, went and bought it sound unheard, INSTANTLY loved every song on it, somehow managed to relate my 15 year old life to its tongue-in-cheek depravity and played the CD till it crumbled (and even now “Pencil skirt” and “Underwear” are some of my favorite songs ever and I still will always dance to “Disco 2000″ even though it makes me want to die on the inside how overplayed it is). So when “This is Hardcore” was about to roll out, I was as excited as only a teenager could be.
And then the singles started rolling in.
Now, in England, if you don’t know this, at least back then, singles actually STILL mattered.
You would go into a record store, give them 99 pennies for a tape or 2 or 3 pounds for a single CD and be off on your merry way.
And considering that I was 17, without a job and going to a school that somehow cost more than half the people made in Serbia in a year (combined) I totally would buy the tape.

So, I ran and bought “This is Hardcore” the second it came out.
And I liked it.
BUT I LOVED LOVED LOVED the B side.
All fuzzy, electric heavy breathing and some of the best lyrics that ever crossed Jarvis’ mouth.

Listen to it:

Then I moved back home, the tape broke, the song was not included in the album and I didn’t know anyone in Serbia that could retrieve something like that for me.

Cue: several years later. (circa 2005)
Several continents, schools, and a million songs later…
I am in DC.
I am working.
I am a fully functional young adult with friends and boyfriends and a rent controlled apartment in Adams Morgan and a perilously high stack of music in my bedroom, but I still miss that goddamn song.
As in-I actively think about missing that song.
I don’t even think of missing people half the time.
And so at some Easter brunch at Wiliam’s (who, if you know him, you know he is THE Pulp person in DC) I mention this song.
And he runs off and within seconds it is on the stereo.
I think I probably died and went to sonic heaven right there and then.
And everyone in the room simultaneously asked “What is this?”
The next day it was in my inbox, the day after in my ipod, and even now, every other playlist I make has it in it.
I would not say it is my favorite song of all time, but that it makes me irrevocably happy and is amazing to apply make up to before going out at night-THAT, that I will say.

You should own it too.
So-from me to you on a Wednesday morning:
score the MP3 here
just come on over….

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