This week, Jim invites us into the shady world of drugs. Admittedly, that topic doesn’t preclude the possibility of pharmaceuticals with a proper medical purpose, but has anyone ever written a song extolling the virtues of paracetamol? There’s plenty to choose from in the seamier parts of the drugs world of course, including such blatant titles as ‘Cocaine’, ‘Heroin’ and ‘Sister Morphine’.
However, I thought I’d go for a song by the British band Pulp, led by Jarvis Cocker. This is from their fifth studio album, ‘Different Class’, which also includes two other proper bangers in ‘Common People’ and ‘Disco 2000’.
Pulp were a bit late for me: this dates from 1995 and is all about ‘Rave’ culture and the transient nature of drug experience. And no, I have never been to a rave or taken ecstasy.
(The video is from Pulp’s appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in 1995.)
Oh is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel?
Or just 20,000 people standing in a field.
And I don’t quite understand just what this feeling is.
But that’s okay ’cause we’re all sorted out for E’s and wizz.
And tell me when the spaceship lands
’cause all this has just got to mean something.
In the middle of the nite, it feels alright, but then tomorrow morning.
Oh then you come down.
Oh yeah the pirate radio station told us what was going down.
Got the tickets from some mashed up bloke in Camden Town.
Oh and no-one seems to know exactly where it is.
But that’s okay ’cause we’re all sorted out for E’s and wizz.
At 4 o’clock the normal world seems very, very, very far away.
Alright.
In the middle of the nite, it feels alright, but then tomorrow morning.
Oh then you come down. Just keep on moving…
Everybody asks your name
They say we’re all the same and it’s “nice one”, “geezer”
But that’s as far as the conversation went.
I lost my friends, I dance alone, it’s six o’clock I wanna go home.
But it’s “no way”, “not today”, makes you wonder what it meant.
And this hollow feeling grows and grows and grows and grows
And you want to phone your mother and say
“Mother, I can never come home again
’cause I seem to have left an important part of my brain somewhere
Somewhere in a field in Hampshire”.
Alright. In the middle of the nite, it feels alright
But then tomorrow morning.
Oh then you come down.
What if you never come down?
Written by Nick Banks, Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Stephen Mackey, Russell Senior and Andrew Webber
the only deadhead in the hameau 
Nice choice for the theme, one I didn’t even think of!
I too missed out completely on the Rave trend, but I was glad you chose the song you did, as I had never heard it, and it was interesting and enjoyable. Had a bit of a Bowie feel to it.
This one’s new to me, but I enjoyed it. And I learned something. Thanks!
Love this Bowie-esque song, which I somehow missed when it first came out. Excellent choice!
I guess this song is about taking ecstasy which I hear was very popular back in the Rave days, but it was never my thing, and I hope their spaceship lands safely some place. Great choice, as the ban and the song were both new to me, but thoroughly enjoyable.
Pulp took a while to make their breakthrough after recording several albums. “His ‘n’ Hers” was the big one and the follow up “Different Class” was the huge one!
Excellent choice 💜