It Took Seconds

Five minutes and thirty-nine seconds: There’s a fantastic moment in Pulp’s “She’s A Lady” when Jarvis Cocker yells “THE MOON HAS GONE DOWN ON THE SUN!” and you realise that in Cockerworld not only is he frustrated because people are having sex and he isn’t but the entire cosmos is having sex and he isn’t. Once Pulp became famous they stopped writing quite so many songs about palm-itching sexual hang-ups and started writing songs about other frustrations instead - being old or being famous or being poor - which were often really great but somehow often not quite as…. intense. But before he got properly into being Late Jarvis though he recorded “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Pelvis” with Barry Adamson, a hilarious kiss-off to the Frustrated Years in which his hopeless, creepy loverman takes it to the floor Austin Powers style. “Haven’t you heard? My name rhymes with Elvis.”

What would your 5’39” track have been?