They're different songs.

Heart Trouble was written - or certainly performed live, a couple of years later.
Imagine something even squakier, out-of-tune, completely tuneless actually, than Silence. Then imagine the recording coming from a crappy dictaphone with a half-pub full of loud, disinterested punters chatting over the 'song'.
It's in a relegation battle for the nadir of Pulp's output.

syntheticgerbil wrote:

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You wouldn't happen to have Heart Trouble, then?

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I nearly did after hearing Russell's violin-playing on it. Ba-dum-tish.

Anyway, I've sent it to baritalia2005 so knock yourself out. Mind your ears though.

Actually, it's not as bad as I remembered it. The best bit about it is the introduction by Jarvis: "This first song is about dying".

*When it plays in your media player, it may be incorrectly tagged as Death Comes To Town. As a matter of interest let me know if that's the case.

I think there's a decent little song somewhere underneath the horrible recording and rather ramshackle performance. Havenhand (are you out there Steven?) explained to me once - apparently it was meant to represent the last moments of someone's life, the drumbeat obviously being the heartbeat and the violin scraping the last rasping breaths.

When it comes to lost classics, I guess it's no Death Comes to Town or Rattlesnake, but I think it's a little unfair to lump it in with Silence! I'd say it's more like the Take You Back or Space of its time. Oh, if only there was a 1987 equivalent of Sudan Gerri that had recordings of all the songs from this period in decent quality...

Eamonn wrote:

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I nearly did after hearing Russell's violin-playing on it. Ba-dum-tish.

Heh. Thank you, I appreciate it.

That actually wasn't near as bad as Silence, and it also helps that it clocks in around 2 minutes so as not to overstay it's welcome too much.

(Oh yeah, it's also named Death Comes to Town for me)

-- Edited by syntheticgerbil at 09:09, 2009-02-07

I've just added a rough transcription of the lyrics to PulpWiki here.

Now it's nearly over
I don't feel scared
I don't feel scared at all

And the child
Who is crying at the bottom of the stairs
Well he won't cry much more

And the sky
Oh the sky it looks so dark tonight
The stars have all gone out

And I
I have made my peace at last
And the moon can have my soul

And there's nothing
No please don't touch me
I have died [????] dying to the world

 

Only the final line I had trouble with really - anyone?