My initial reaction to the song in 2006 is that it didnt fit the album because of the sound. I still have that feeling although it has fade away a bit. But It has that "old" Pulp sound, when This is Hardcore was very "raw" with a less synths and guitars pushed to the front. Its a Dirty World sound more like early 90s Pulp, that's probably why it was left off.

As for being a potential single, I also disagree. It doesnt sound like a song that could have Worked In the charts In 98. Still holding my position : it sounds like « old » Pulp. Or maybe like Pulp if Russell Senior had stayed :D

What a great song. I dunno, I suppose groups are also difficult. I wonder how much of a democratic decision was it with songs and was it like a group vote. If you've ever been in a band it's a bloody nightmare. You end up playing setlists you wouldn't have picked if you had your own way. Then the record label has a say as well I suppose. You do have to consider how it all fits and flows. Personally I'd put it as track two but I'm not sure where I'd put Dishes then. Such a great tune and I love the sound...did I dream this or does it say in the notes about it being a horn from a bicycle or something! Not at home to check the reissue.

-- Edited by Jean on Monday 17th of July 2023 02:33:33 PM

In the sleevenotes, Jarvis says "Towards the end of the album sessions we came up with this song which ended up being left off the final album". An alternative tracklisting exists for "We Love Life" which is the same songs in a different order but apart from the US and Japan versions with the extra tracks, I don't think I have ever seen one for "This is Hardcore".

I'd have put it out as the lead single in late 1997, it's a very bold statement of intent and I think it would have been very popular. That said, judging by Jarvis' comments above, it probably wasn't recorded until early 1998.

Reading Ian's quote from Jarvis, I can see how that would be inferred as the song being originally on the track-listing.

From an interview with Pitchfork in 2007:


The biggest surprise that I got was a track that was on the bonus disc of This Is Hardcore, which I think was the only studio outtake we've ever had, which was a song that we just abandoned called "It's a Dirty World". And when I listened to that, I realized that I must have been pretty fucked up at that time, because it's better than about six songs that actually ended up on This Is Hardcore. So that was the biggest surprise, really. I thought it was a really good song.

No, he's correct!

Eamonn wrote:

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No, he's correct!

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Nah, he's wrong. I give you Sylvia, but the rest does not move. 

TIH should have been a double album anyway. 

joemc5054 wrote:

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there is plenty for a double album, even throw in some b sides.

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With the full outro to The Day After the Revolution, 'This Is Hardcore' has (fittingly enough) a runtime of 69 minutes.

For reference, Blonde on Blonde is 72 minutes long.

So it's already nearly a double album! Having said that...

...here's a proposition. This Is Hardcore, the double album.

 

 

side one - (19:39)
the fear (7:11)
she said she was a dancer (5:13)
we are the boyz (3:15)
party hard (4:00)

side two - (20:44)
help the aged (4:28)
i'm a man (4:20)
love scenes (8:31)
tv movie (3:25)

side three - (20:35)
end of the line - 1:52
this is hardcore (6:25)
the professional (5:09)
laughing boy (3:50)
a little soul (3:19)

side four - (18:41)
sylvia (5:44)
like a friend (4:32)
glory days (4:55)
dishes (3:30)

 

Not much variation there. I've chosen every single track that was on the original album, with the exception of one - The Day After the Revolution. I've added five B-sides (Laughing Boy, The Professional, Like a Friend, We Are the Boyz, and the End of the Line remix) and one demo (It's a Dirty World). The latter has been renamed to "She Said She Was a Dancer". Seductive Barry is now either 'Love Scenes' or 'Sex Symbols', both of which were working titles, depending on what mood you're in.

None of those songs are particularly surprising additions. "My Erection" was the other one I considered, while "Can I Have My Balls Back, Please?" is all right - it could've been a B-side, I think. I could've crammed another track in, but opted not to (and also decided to add both End of the Line as an intro to Hardcore, and to go with the full, extended version of The Fear).

The rest of the tracks don't quite have it, although they didn't reach a full production stage which has biased me a bit. The vocoder let down "Ladies' Man", while "Modern Marriage" was too His 'N' Hers, "You Are the One" was too Different Class (though I do really like it, it wouldn't belong here at all), "Street Operator" really did not seem as punchy as its similarly-themed peers, and "Tomorrow Never Lies/Dies" is a Bond theme - you can't really make it not one. And while I absolutely adore Cocaine Socialism - and think that musically, parts of the 'proper version' should have made their way into Glory Days, especially in the outro - it doesn't fit with the rest of the album thematically. Glory Days does, that's all.

 

I'm going to break down my tracklist. NB - when I talk about 'Jarvis', I'm talking about him playing a character - an exaggerated form of himself. There's also a composite female figure, the woman of "It's a Dirty World", the dancer - but she's really a stand-in for women generally, a composite of different characters.

We can only start with "The Fear". It's the perfect opener, and here I've extended it to be the Complete and Utter Breakdown version - a prolonged musical statement, a tone-setter, bombastic and intense.

Following "The Fear" with the incredible statement of "She said she was a dancer" provides a double whammy of paranoia and intrigue. It introduces a recurring theme - 'Jarvis' in his pursuit of a woman with whom he can fulfil his sexual needs, wants, and desires. He's not her equal - all he has is his second-hand excuse for technique - but it's something. And it's proof, yet, that you can teach an old dog new tricks, right?

This is the idea underpinning that 90s lads culture. You're the boys, you sleep with slags, you nick their fags, you make some noise. So the more sensitive, characterful, and realistic portrait of "She said she was a dancer" is swept away by the brash laddism, machismo, and riotous fun of "We Are the Boyz". 'Jarvis' is living this lifestyle, and while he's assailed by doubts - I mean, he's 33 - she shrugs it away. We're still the boyz, right?

And to prove it, time to live up that raucous celebrity lifestyle. "Party Hard" picks up where "We Are the Boyz" left off; now it's the night-time and they're 'avin' it large. This, and WATB, have a similar thematic feel, and they team up with the previous two tracks to make the first side of the album big, full of either grand musical statements or glam-stomping pop tunes. But at the end, with that bassline bubbling away, Jarvis's vocals fade out, as he asks partygoers to 'come home' with him... it's almost as if his attempts aren't quite cutting through...

Side 2. Turns out, it was the party that made him feel his age. And so the next side starts with incongruous, groggy easy-listening music, the awfulness of the next-day hangover asserting itself, the post-coke-and-booze depression spiralling into paranoia. "Help the Aged" forces Jarvis into introspection and panic. He's now in his thirties, and life doesn't seem all that.

The epiphany of "Help the Aged" means that Jarvis now has to turn around and look at himself. He's no longer one of the boyz; he's a man. But what does that mean? He struggles for answers, and lashes out at the concept of masculinity but then ends up partly shrugging the whole thing off. "I'm a Man", mixed to be brisker (I've shorn 40 seconds from its duration), whistles by in a frenzy, despite its overtones of existential dread threatening to build up and overwhelm the whole thing; yes, Jarvis is scared of death, but right now, he's struggling to make sense of why we're alive.

You're a man, are you, Jarvis? Time to make good on your manhood, then. 

"Love Scenes" is the longest track on the album, and it presents Jarvis with a golden chance, in the charred remains of his own masculinity. This will really separate the men from the boys. It's his dancer from her dirty world, and she wants him, and this could fill the void of masculinity, couldn't it? We return to familiar lyrical territory as before - those other guys couldn't handle her act, they'd seen it all and they still couldn't come. How many of them could handle it if all their dreams came true? It's hard to answer, at first, but the two of them fumble together, suspend their disbelief, and they manage it - to him, she is every part the star he idolised, and Jarvis, who entered battered, emerges the New Man. I mean, now he even thinks he can touch the stars! The lyric "I will light your cigarette with a star that has fallen from the sky" is a piece of sparkling poetry, and one of the finest lines on the whole album.

Thing is, it's hubris. Totally. This woman is still just an object to him - the only voice she has on the album are Neneh Cherry's breathy moans and vocalisations - she exists merely as a sex object. Jarvis's renewal is dependant on his own sense of agency. And, with nothing real of substance to fill in the gaps in his life, the afterglow gives way to something bleaker. 

"TV Movie" is the biggest moment of loneliness on the original record. The most difficult decision isn't justifying its place, but in moving it from its original berth, after the title track... yes, people like to rag on "TV Movie", but it does an excellent job of providing a buffer and a cooldown after the earth-shaking title track.

With the original sequencing of the studio album, it created a sort of one-two punch, a cause-and-effect combination where the emptiness created by 'This Is Hardcore' spills over into the emotional malaise of the next track. After "Love Scenes", it's a bit jarring - Jarvis has just shared a successful liaison with this idealised woman, but now he's without her again?

Well, she's left him. Or she's away doing something else. Or someone else. Jarvis's fragile masculinity has proven what he already knew: in the end, he was never really her equal. And now he's alone, and rather than dreaming and sleeping for the rest of his life, he's staying awake all night, stifled by his own inertia, knowing inside that he has nothing real to offer. As an album, This Is Hardcore is basically about fantasies versus realities, using porn to signpost this (as a metaphor for fame and existence);"TV Movie" strips bare the dreamlike facade of "Love Scenes", the biggest indication so far that things are going horribly wrong, that this album isn't just about addressing social concepts (partying! ageing! fame! sex!), but also the way their associated psychic baggage

Then, the white noise fades away. At this point, the "TV Movie" is over - and given Jarvis was sitting at home late at night, it might not have been the B-movie that the lyrics suggested. It closes the first disc in a place of real gloom, with porny implications for what's to come next...

The second disc swaps the machine-fuzz for something that immediately wipes the palate clear. The next track is "This Is Hardcore", but first we're treated to a peace of music that's not mentioned on the back of the sleeve - the orchestral intro to "This Is Hardcore", also found as a B-side on the single. Here, it curdles and crossfades into the sinister title track, buried right at the dark and twisted heart of the album. "This Is Hardcore" is obviously colossal. We all know what happens: a couple make a porn movie to appeal to male sexuality, they watch it, it's a horrible turn-off that strips sex down into an act of bitter conquest and violence. Let's move on.

On the original album, the grand failure chronicled "This Is Hardcore" causes the malaise of "TV Movie"; on my tracklisting, the emptiness of "TV Movie" precipitates the disastrous pornographic venture of "This Is Hardcore", and then, that leads to the post-mortem introspection ("I've been rehearsing this scene so long now") of "The Professional". Now, Jarvis is emasculated - like those other guys who can't come, he can't even hold himself erect! - and he opens all the fury inward in a thrilling self-takedown. Yet, at the same time, Steve Mackey's seedy bassline underpins everything, and Jarvis knows he will return to his shag-driven ways, he urges his lover to 'sleep on', he is still The Professional. He hates himself, but it's too late to back out now. He's losing interest in her, but he won't tell her that - the sex is part of his self-identity, part of the persona he's constructed that he is now ripping apart, Jarvis as The Professional.

Jarvis is playing the part of lothario-in-general, and now his facade of being this shag-a-holic ubermensch - this lothario who can use seduction as a means of rhetorical triumph, who can withhold it ("Common People") and weaponise it ("I Spy") in order to posit some kind of grand artistic agenda, who has gone from getting his kicks down below for the hell of it in suburban living rooms ("Space", "Acrylic Afternoons") to using women sexually in an exhibition of his own seductive abilities, for the satisfaction of his grimmest fantasies ("Pencil Skirt", "Underwear") - and who has now briefly been faced with the fact he knows he's doing this, but ushers his partner to sleep on anyway...

...well, it turns out he wasn't the mover-and-shaker he thought he was. You see, he gets I-Spy'ed by his lover: she's been sleeping with someone else the whole bloody time. And so we get the beautifully disconsolate "Laughing Boy", with Cocker feeling older than ever - now he's the grouch who wants a night's sleep while some young Jarv-in-waiting kisses his partner's particulars.

His ego taken down, Jarvis - ever the professional - makes pleas to another boy of sorts, himself, as he takes the form of his own father. In "A Little Soul", Jarvis reviews how he treats women, and his now-punctured view of himself. He comes to the conclusion that this behaviour needs fixing - he can't keep on behaving that way, he can't pass these attitudes on. His partner's gone, and Jarvis can't become a middle-aged, port-or-brandy-sipping, emotionally-disconnect male failure. He needs to learn how to treat women right. And he also needs to learn how to relate to himself, to arrest this slide, to fix the trajectory of his own life.

Side four opens with "Sylvia", the tale of a damaged woman who like Jarvis has been affected by a bad father (although she, being a woman, has suffered much worse than abandonment). Now, Jarvis has to find a way to relate to her, and in doing so he reflects on his own behaviour in the past. He doesn't have the answers she needs, but he assures her they'll both make it out OK; he has no particular reason to feel they should, it's vague and aspirational and hollow just like any other societal mantra, but he sort of has to say it, because there's nothing else he can say.

Perhaps he now reconciles with his ex-lover, perhaps now that her dalliance has fizzled out. He feels betrayed, but he should've known - she's even dirtier than him, after all - and he has, in some fractured way, met his match. So he lets her in, to wipe her feet on his dreams again, for the sheer hell of it - he hasn't got much else going for him, but the Sylvia revelation has forced him to realise that he can treat her better than he has. And so we get "Like a Friend", its disconsolate lyrics ramping up into a stomp, a grand statement of let's-do-it-all-again-one-more-time. 

The mood continues in "Glory Days". "Come and spend this golden age with me", Jarvis entreats, "in my single-room apartment". They have each other, don't they? Sure, the world they were promised is uncaring and underfunded, a violent facade of society with no promise and nothing to do... but the ideals of celebrity he thought he was living up to have broken down, now, and he's too worn ("these glory days can take their toll") to fight back.

So the album ends with Jarvis doing the "Dishes", settling for the domestication of Lyndhurst Grove, exhaustedly fizzling out but reassured by the fact that he has successfully found his way into adult life. He is "just a man". This lifestyle, this depressing no-way-out suburban ignominy that he once absolutely tore apart in his records, is now - he realised - his only way of staying reasonably sane, and he accepts it gratefully. He has someone to live it out with, that's all that matters, right?

And so, about half an hour since Seductive Barry, Jarvis tells us he knows that he will never touch the stars.

 

That is Hardcore. You can perhaps tag on a snippet of 'End of the Line' to finish, and fade out the vinyl...

 

That's as good as I can do, I think.

Cheers, Eamonn! Also... ...has anyone noticed how the start of this song sounds like Happiness Is A Warm Gun?

lipglossed wrote:

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Cheers, Eamonn! Also... ...has anyone noticed how the start of this song sounds like Happiness Is A Warm Gun?

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 Huh...that's my favourite Beatles song (as it was Steve Mackey's), maybe that's why I love it...