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Imagine yourselves back, through the mists of time, ok, March 1980, er, you're in here
and about to watch the very, very first performance ever in the history of mankind of Pulp.
Are you there? Are you feeling it? This is the secondary school that I went to
between the ages of twelve and eighteen, I suppose, and I've come back today to talk
about this book of my lyrics. *Got a baby, only one thing's wrong. She quotes
Shakespeare all day long. Said 'Baby why you ignoring me'
She said 'To be or not to be'.* I played the first song that I ever wrote,
which is awful, Shakespeare Rock it is called. *Shakespeare Rock, Shakespeare Roll, Shakespeare
Rock, Shakespeare Roll* I've just used that as an example of how when
you first start writing songs you don't really know what to write about.
The other way you can go is to try and write about the whole state of the universe in one
song, erm, which I'll play you a tiny bit of from this other song, which is too embarrassing
to play a lot of, it was a song called 'Life is a Circle', it's a very serious song. Lets
see if I can remember how it goes. *Life is a circle you're caught on, Life is
a road that's much too long, It winds, goes ahead, It only stops when you're dead*
I'll spare you the rest of it! Well, my message was, hopefully, a positive
message which is that, um, which is that, er, you know, everybody's, people kind of
try and erm, fight to get an angle on things but everybody has already got a unique viewpoint
just through accidents of birth and stuff like that and really the trick is just to
recognise that and not to discount your own experience and think that you're not official
enough or proper enough. In a way it wasn't until I'd moved away from
Sheffield and from here that all those kind of normal things suddenly they weren't normal
anymore because I wasn't seeing them every day and so then I realised that they were
interesting and I think that is, for me that was one of the key things to realise that
er just because something to you seems supernormal and maybe a bit boring or whatever, to somebody
else it'll seem exotic because they are not living the same life.
And so as an example of what I've just been talking about, this next song that I'm going
to play you was the first song that really got us any attention. Again it was written
when I was in London. I should point out as well, that this song
has got the same chords as the silly one about Shakespeare, so that again goes to prove something,
if only I could think of what it was! *Well it happened years ago, when you lived
on Stanhope Road, We listened to your sister when she came home from school, she was two
years older and she had boys in her room, I listened outside, I heard her*
Now I am going to the library, the school library because I am going to present them
with a copy my book to put in there for people to deface! And er, but I also have these books
which er belong to this school, which I naughtily didn't bring back, so I've got - that one,
that one is quite interesting because look it has actually got a Pulp flier, a very small
flier, inside it! So I'll take them back and see what the fine is going to be like!
*I listened outside, I heard her, alright, oh I want to take you home, I wanna give you
Hello I've got
Oh, there's more than one! Yes I know I've got a confession, yeah, so
Do you know, I don't do fines but if I did you'd owe me quite a bit of money!
I know! I wouldn't be stood here if you paid your
fine Well I wouldn't be stood here either!
*Oh, listen, well we were on the bed, when you came home, I heard you stop, outside the
door, I know you won't believe its true I went with her cos she looked like you, my
god! Oh I wanna take you home, I wanna give you children, you might be my girlfriend,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oooooh, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, oh yeah!*
Quite cool, yeah. He's got a good story too. How he started out so.
Yeah, it went alright actually, it seemed to go OK.
Girls, very nice. I thought it was funny and fun. He's hilarious.
I'm really glad that I did it, so, I still, you know, I think that's where interesting
things come from. I guess that's because it is my background, so, I remember it, I've
got fondness for it but, erm, I don't know, them kids have got some, they've got a bit
of, there's a spark of magic there and I just, you know, its nice if you can think that they
are going to do something with that, you know.