The Comedy of Errors: Pulp - O.U. (Gone, Gone) (29 May 1992)

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So, do you remember this mid 90s question and its popular answer?

Oasis or Blur?  Neither, Marion.  At least that was how I used to answer it, but everyone else said Pulp.

In 1995-96, that was still a debatable question, though Pulp could rightfully claim to have released a better album and lead single than either Oasis or Blur produced during Britpop’s high summer.  But at least the other two bands had credit in the bank from previous releases, so I never regarded the argument as being quite as cut and dried as those who considered themselves above the Battle of Britpop thought it was with that trick question.  But if we pose it in 1992, then Pulp wipe the floor with both of them.
In fairness to Oasis, they weren’t yet part of the discussion in 1992.  Their horizons at the time stretched no further than sporadic gigs in the North West to break up their long gestation of songs and sound that they were putting together in rehearsal spaces at Manchester’s Boardwalk.  Meanwhile, Blur spent the year walking into walls at every turn - sometimes literally given the excessive drinking  that they were indulging in; a crutch to help them deal with scrapped sessions for their first attempt at recording a follow-up album to Leisure, an American tour which saw inter-band relationships hit a thudding low with the only thing sustaining them being a realisation that they held the USA, at that time, in as large a contempt as it seemed to hold them (and from there, a future would emerge) and most damaging of all, their ace in the hole return single, Popscene was received like a cup of cold sugary tea by both the charts and the critics.  As it was 1992 though, a number 32 chart peak for a comeback single could be filed as a “setback” rather than the career killer it was for other bands 5 or 6 years later.  Therefore, even with Suede stealing column inches and playing their part in Blur’s annus horribilis, there was still a space for Pulp to walk into.  It would take a year or two for the spotlight to be turned on, and they had spent a decade buggering about releasing records between line-up changes, degree courses and broken legs, but 1992 was the year when Pulp found their voice and people began to listen.
Pulp had been a very occasional presence on John Peel playlists in the 11 years since they had recorded a Peel session for broadcast in November 1981.  Although that session had been well received enough to receive two repeats, Pulp were still waiting for a return invite by May 1992.  However, they were now in a position to give the record buying public of the time more of themselves than had been previously possible.  Three years after recording it, Fire Records, Pulp’s label from 1985 to 1992, finally put out the band’s third album, Separations, which showcased the band’s flirtation with house music alongside their usual lush treatises on love, sexual desire, relationships and urban fragility, not least in the superb My Legendary Girlfriend.  But in purely commodified terms, the Separations LP represented the “old” Pulp.  Indeed, a look at the admittedly
incomplete list of Pulp appearances on Peel’s show reveals that he only gave one track from that album any exposure. This might have been because he was now fixing his ears to the sound of the “new” Pulp, signed to Gift Records, with whom the band would release three singles over 92-93 which would put them on the road to mainstream success, a mere 14 years after Jarvis Cocker started the band with three school friends.

There was always something wonderfully cinematic about Pulp’s music.  At their best, they could sound punky, glam and symphonic simultaneously.  Their use of synths and keyboards tied to their
rock solid rhythm section and Russell Senior’s violin work gave their recordings a beguilingly, exotic quality even if the songs were about the aftermath of one-night stands in dingy bedsits. O.U. (Gone, Gone) features plenty of sex, at least at its outset, but sets itself within the context of the classic trope of “Girl’s waiting at the station, Boy’s got to tell her he loves her before the train arrives or he’ll never see her again.”  Being that this is Sheffield, there are certain obstacles to overcome, not least the need to get out of someone else’s bed in order to get to the station on time. In the second verse, the characters change and Cocker works himself into the song so that the girl rejects the train and comes running back down the platform towards him.  In Pulp’s world, nothing is simple though.  The song takes place against the backdrop of a breakup and the re-use of the line “The world is ending/ the sky is falling down” implies that the only thing worse for this couple than breaking up might be
staying together.  It features plenty of touches that would become familiar over the subsequent years as Pulp became better known such as Cocker’s passionate “yeah, yeah, yeah”s, the Pulp Ascent in which the music builds up behind Cocker before waiting to explode (examples can be heard in the coda of Common People and everything after the opening lines in Mis-Shapes) and the Big Ending in which you can imagine Nick Banks orchestrating audience applause with his cymbal rattles at the end of live performances of the track.  Considering that O.U. (Gone, Gone) had been released by Gift Records to do battle with Fire Records Separations album, it’s only fair that I put up something from Separations which could be thought as a companion piece to O.U. (Gone, Gone) despite pre-dating it. Don’t You Want Me Anymore? sees Cocker returning to the girl and town he took a train out of 18 months previously expecting her to fall into his arms again and be acclaimed as a returning hero only to find that time stands still for no-one.



Videos courtesy of Pulp - Topic and Neptune’s Trident

All lyrics copyright of Jarvis Cocker