First post + Pulp - Underwear

The format of this blog is gonna be pretty straightforward, so mentioning at all in this first post seems kind of silly. Every week I'm taking a song and giving a long ramble I would usually save for whoever I decided to bother about it in person at that particular time. Maybe this will stop me from being such a nuisance. Or maybe I will find a loving internet audience. I doubt it. I'm starting with Underwear by Pulp only because I was listening to it a lot when I had the idea to start this.

Lyrically, to put it in simplest terms, "Underwear" deals with what is ostensibly a sexual encounter between two people and one or perhaps both of them realizing "oh shit this is really happening" without knowing how to actually deal with that. However, that description doesn't come close to fully giving it justice, which is why I have about three more paragraphs taking apart the damn thing.

 The conceit of this having Jarvis as the narrator while simultaneously inside the head of the girl has always been really powerful to me because of how well he's able to make her anxiety about the situation tangible. It could be argued that he has no place narrating a woman's thoughts, seeing as he isn't one, but writers put themselves in the shoes of other people all the time (side note: if anyone knows of a woman writing a similar song, I'd be interested in hearing it). Jarv himself has often said in interviews that growing up surrounded by women (his mother and sister) has made him more sensitive to them (us, if I'm including myself) and their perspective, and that really shines through in this song. 

Musically, I'm equally as enthusiastic about it. The slow, tense, chord progression in the verses goes up and down until BAM! you're hit by a blast of cheesy synths with the grandeur of a church organ in such a way that captures the feeling of being excited about the encounter, which quickly turns to misgiving and fear, back to that hopeful sounding E chord that suggests maybe everything isn't so bad after all. The airy cymbal at the tail-end of the song is just the icing on the cake for me. It definitely helps that I'm a big sucker for melodrama, of which there is no shortage in Pulp songs. 

As someone who is very introverted and quite honestly terrified by just the thought of interacting physically with another human being, it is not hard for me to see where he was coming from on this one. It seems like he's sympathizing with the other party, and suggesting that he's every bit as anxious himself. While this was only the B-side to "Common People," I think it's every bit as good as the A-side, if not better (As an American I think part of that comes from the fact that Common People is so obnoxiously British I find it alienating).

That concludes my first entry of what will hopefully be many... praying that my writing will slowly improve with each one