Jarvis is coming back to us
You may not know this about me, but for the better part of 1996, I was worryingly obsessed with Pulp. I'm kidding, of course. Everyone knows that about me.
I left Pulp the next year when I fell hard for Belle & Sebastian, and Pulp's attempt to win me back with This Is Hardcore was a sweet gesture, but ultimately not enough. There were still some moments on both that album and the follow up, We Love Life that struck me, but even the great moments were great mostly* because they reminded me of those times driving around North Carolina in my Saturn, almost driving off the road because moments off of His 'n' Hers and Different Class were moving me to tears. I knew they could never top those days, and so I stopped expecting them to.
So when I heard that Jarvis Cocker had a solo album coming out, I raised an eyebrow in interest, but I didn't wriggle with anticipation. I'd hear it when I heard it, I figured. No rush. I half-heartedly snagged it as much out of obligation to my new position as Master Music Thief as actual interest.
But you know what? It's good. Damn good. Sure, it has that same twinge of lethargy that kept the last two Pulp releases from being great, but there's still moments, like in "Tonite" and "Big Julie" where Jarvis' mastery of The Great Emotional Climax is in full effect, bringing back the flood of feelings that hadn't washed over me since discovering "Pink Glove" and "Monday Morning".
Besides the emotional peak, though, what always amazed me about Jarvis is his ability to write a songs that I felt a huge empathy with, even if the actual experience or feeling was foreign to me. I was never an adulterous, drug-addicted, manic-depressive raver, but by the end of a beginning-to-end listening of Different Class (the greatest album ever made), I still found myself blown away by how true every word of it seemed. "Yes!" I thought. "That's exactly what it feels like to be stranded by your friends, coming down off ecstasy in the middle of a thousands-strong rave in the remote fields of an English countryside!"
And he hits this again in moments of Jarvis, especially on the beautiful "Baby's Coming Back To Me" (listen). That glorious feeling of the world being nothing but right just because the love that you missed will soon be back with you is a feeling I've felt before, but not in a long, long time. Yet when this song comes on, the repetitious chorus makes me feel it as though it's ecstatically, excitingly real.
Welcome back, Jarvis. We've missed you.
* I say "mostly" because This Is Hardcore includes my favorite-ever Jarvis line: "I could be a genius if I just put my mind to it, and I could do anything if only I could get around to it."
5 comments:
America's got kisses for you, Jarvis!
...and wasn't that guy also throwing Hershey Kisses on stage? I do remember that he said that with a kind of menacing voice. And Jarvis just rolled his eyes and said something like, "Oh, good."
I meant to also point out that one of the things that I'm a little disappointed about in the album is his wimping out on the song titles. "From Auschwitz To Ipswitch" becomes "From A to I" and "The Cunts are Running the World" becomes "Running The World". Come on, Jarvis! Hit us with your best shot! Wal-Mart's not going to stock it anyway!
If memory serves me correctly, Jarvis's response to the Hershey Kisses guy was "Oh I'm going to sleep so much better tonight, thank you." And to the bimbos in the balcony waving a union jack and yelling "Hey, British people!", he said "Oh God, what?!"
Still one of the most euphoric concert experiences I've ever had.
Re. "Baby's Coming Back". At the risk of ruining it, I read reviews that suggest that Jarvis is a doing a job of convincing himself, but baby ain't actually coming home. Now I kinda hear it that way too. He paints such a cartoony view of things that its hard to take it for face value. It's a pretty song...but it feels like tragedy and despair lurks around the corner.
I don't know about that. The fact that he wrote the song for Nancy Sinatra makes me think that he was actually after a sweet pop song. It's only because it's Jarvis singing it that makes it sound bitter and gloomy. I don't hear anything in it that makes me think that the point of the song is exactly what it is.
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