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Post Info TOPIC: Cocaine Socialism
missedhertime


Common Person

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Cocaine Socialism
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Ok well it was raining very very hard and i was stuck in borders and the latest uncut was on the bestsellers pile thing (as good an excuse as i've come across), and the thing that really grabbed my attention was jarvis' comments on cocaine socialism. i'd be very grateful for a quotation on this but the gist was that he reckoned he'd bottled out when it came to the lyrics. "it ended up being about nothing at all" was (give or take) his verdict on glory days, and truth be told i think i would agree. a few people here have suggested that glory days is as valid or (even excusing the shite arrangement) as good a song as the original, and i just wondered why?


 


anyway hello to everyone, you all seem a lovely bunch



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Fuss Free


Different Class

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Missedhertime wrote:
"[Glory Days] ended up being about nothing at all"

Much like life, don't you think? That's what I love about "Glory Days". To me, it's a song about discovering that the light at the end of the tunnel is, in reality, just another train about to cut you down.


I would suggest that Glory Days has more to say about modern politics than Cocaine Socialism ever could. It saddens me when I read quotes from Jarvis wherein he second guesses some of his best work. I think Jarvis sometimes writes his best lyrics in a hazy moment of clarity and then forgets how or why he wrote them in the first place. 


Jarv, if you are out there, Glory Days is one of your finest accomplishments as a writer. Stop being so self-critical.



-- Edited by Fuss Free at 04:44, 2006-12-02

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Jock Mooney


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I've grown to hate Glory Days actually. Compared to "Cocaine socialism" it pales into insignificance - and why the HELL didn't they at least keep the arrangement used in cocaine? If This is Hardcore needed a lift that would have done it....likewise "It's a Dirty World" is one of the best Pulp songs ever- and it simply beggars belief why this wasn't on the album, they obvioulsy were all a severe mess at that time.



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Mike


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I love both songs. "Cocaine Socialism" is the better one; it's one of my favorite angry political songs. But I like the idea that they made a more ambivalent version of it with "Glory Days." I agree with Fuss Free's analysis. Who was it that made an alternative TIH track listing with both songs? That would've been something.



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Eamonn


The Only Way is Down

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Plus Glory Days, for a "meaningless song" doesn't half have some brilliant lyrics


"And I used to do the I Ching
but then I had to feed the meter.
Now I can't see into the future
but at least I can use the heater."


Totally inspired. It's about disilliusionment, it's stark and bare and I think it contrasts well with the polished arrangement.


"Oh we were brought up on the Space-Race,
now they expect you to clean toilets.
When you have seen how big the world is how can you make do with this?"


is probably my favourite lyric on the album. Young Jarvis thought he'd be living in space by 1998, instead he spent much of the 80s in bed or selling washing machines in the rain, and that frustrating feeling of worthlessness is universal.



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Jock Mooney


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the alternate tracklist with both songs was by me, actually...but over time my love has grown for the out take and severly deminished for the album track, I think it will lead to suicide.



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Steve Devereux


This Space For Rent

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RE: Cocaine Socialism
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Well, I must say I much prefer Glory Days. Cocaine Socialism the B-side is good, but feels dated; subsequent events have given it a timestamp. An entertaining jab about the vacuousness/lack of substance of New Labour which once seemed so prescient and so relevant is a bit less so almost nine years later; after so much betrayal and badness and so many people fucking dead, it's no longer enough to do what is essentially a comedy sketch in the character of some smug careerist cokehead New Labour politician; the lyrics just lack bite now. Cocaine Socialism the out-take, meanwhile, is cheesy and unnecessary. I mean, honestly, those backing vocals, the big parping horn-farts, what the fuck? Maybe I'm just used to the B-side version now and can't listen to this new/old version properly or something, but to me it sounds rubbish.

Glory Days, by contrast, is a thing of beauty; at once a distillation of, and the missing link between, Common People and Mis-Shapes. "When you've seen how big the world is, how can you make do with this? If you want me, I'll be sleeping in, sleeping in throughout these 'glory days'..." is maybe my favourite bit of the whole This Is Hardcore album. It won't stop being so just because Jarvis apparently doesn't like it - but then my thoughts on artists dissing their apparently-heartfelt earlier work are probably pretty well known by now, I suppose.

And I like the arrangement.

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josta59


Hardcore

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Alright, Steve! My fellow TiH defender to the end. I will probably be buying the extended version soon. This has been my very favorite album lately.

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Mike


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Actually, I think "Cocaine Socialism" is still relevant. It's all about how the things you really believe in can eventually become a commodity, political or otherwise.


Plus, this kind of thing still happens. Here is the U.S., we had all these big-whoop concerts for John Kerry with R.E.M., Bruce Springsteen, Bright Eyes et al. And what did it achieve? Fuck all.


Also, I like the overwrought production. It makes the song sound even nastier.


But that's not to slight "Glory Days." Hey, the subhead on my blog is a line from it; obviously, I like it a lot, and agree with a lot of the sentiments of the pro-GD camp.



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Frisko2000


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as far as Labour being opportunistic and empty as the party of youth, yeah, that sentiment would be a little dated (considering that in 2007 they're basically genocidal imperialists.) Glory Days, as someone already mentioned, is about getting nothing done and being disappointed in the standards that american TV has set; that's still apt. plus, Glory Days has a better arrangement.

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Fuss Free


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Anyone ever given much thought to the similarities between Pulp's Glory Days and the Bruce Springstein song of the same name? Given Jarv's encyclopediac knowledge of pop music, he must have been aware of the Boss's earlier hit. There's the fact that both songs are ironic, for instance. And both songwriters are working class heroes in their respective countries. They do have a similar way with lyrics... except that Springstein sucks of course...



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Pip


Cocaine Socialist

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I've always preferred Glory Days to Cocaine Socialism.
Totally agree with Eammon about the lyrics:


"Oh we were brought up on the Space-Race,
now they expect you to clean toilets.
When you have seen how big the world is how can you make do with this?"


Is especially good. :)


Also, never been to keen on the synth they used for Cocaine Socialism - sounds too much like We Are The Boyz anyway.



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littlesaint


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Slightly off topic - I had iTunes on shuffle other day and Day after the Revolution came on - a song on TIH that I never really learned to like. It was the first time in ages that I heard it and I was thinking "why did I not like this?" Then it got to the end... all that Sheffield's gone and stuff. And I realised why, it kinda doesn't lve up to its promise - and then there's that long note at the end that goes on forever...

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josta59


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Scary Hardcore
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Well, since we're off-topic now, I've been finding that TiH works very well side-by-side with Bowie's Scary Monsters. There's a lot of similar stuff going on there. Webber's guitar styling doesn't have much in common with Robert Fripp's 1980 licks, but a similar spirit is at work, just the same.

I made a Pandora station recently combining the two. It's called "Scary Hardcore".

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Mike


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littlesaint wrote:

and then there's that long note at the end that goes on forever...


One of the nice things about the U.S. TIH is that the long note gets cut off after about 30 seconds. And I think "Like a Friend" fits in afterwards really well.

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The Idiot


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I've been finding that TiH works very well side-by-side with Bowie's Scary Monsters

That's quite interesting, especially as one of the proposed tracklistings on here contained both Cocaine Socialism and Glory Days, at the beginning and end respecitvely, in a move that reminded me of Scary Monsters. They're certainly both quite dark and guitarry records from artists not necessarily known for that style.

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andy


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simply put : glory days owns cocaine socialism

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James


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josta59 wrote:

Well, since we're off-topic now, I've been finding that TiH works very well side-by-side with Bowie's Scary Monsters. There's a lot of similar stuff going on there.


 


And Party Hard is remarkably similar to Scary Monsters (& Super Creeps) itself...



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Frisko2000


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Scary Monsters v. This Is Hardcore...

i think the title track for Hardcore puts it slightly ahead...

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josta59


Hardcore

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It's not a race.

-- Edited by josta59 at 19:39, 2006-12-04

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zonko


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Steve Devereux wrote:

Well, I must say I much prefer Glory Days. Cocaine Socialism the B-side is good, but feels dated; subsequent events have given it a timestamp. An entertaining jab about the vacuousness/lack of substance of New Labour which once seemed so prescient and so relevant is a bit less so almost nine years later; after so much betrayal and badness and so many people fucking dead, it's no longer enough to do what is essentially a comedy sketch in the character of some smug careerist cokehead New Labour politician; the lyrics just lack bite now. Cocaine Socialism the out-take, meanwhile, is cheesy and unnecessary. I mean, honestly, those backing vocals, the big parping horn-farts, what the fuck? Maybe I'm just used to the B-side version now and can't listen to this new/old version properly or something, but to me it sounds rubbish.

Glory Days, by contrast, is a thing of beauty; at once a distillation of, and the missing link between, Common People and Mis-Shapes. "When you've seen how big the world is, how can you make do with this? If you want me, I'll be sleeping in, sleeping in throughout these 'glory days'..." is maybe my favourite bit of the whole This Is Hardcore album. It won't stop being so just because Jarvis apparently doesn't like it - but then my thoughts on artists dissing their apparently-heartfelt earlier work are probably pretty well known by now, I suppose.

And I like the arrangement.
That says everything I wanted to.

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andy


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andy wrote:

simply put : glory days owns cocaine socialism

 

Funny : i posted that almost ten year ago (ouch!), and i still kinda agree with that, although It changed a bit. Now to me, both songs are totally different. Even though they have the same melody, they dont sound the same at all.

I feel like Cocaine Socialism has an even bigger meaning nowadays, with the lack of trust in political forces growing and growing, whichever they are. And that production is quite frankly, amazing... on both tracks.

Still believe This is Hardcore era is the best, ever, forever. And EVER. Strong double album easily.



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Stephen


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I think its one of the biggest Pulp "what ifs" with regards to if Cocaine Socialism had been the comeback single. Yes it might sound dated now but I bet it would have got a hell.of.a lot.of.coverage and become part of the public psyche more than HTA did...

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andy


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Stephen wrote:

I think its one of the biggest Pulp "what ifs" with regards to if Cocaine Socialism had been the comeback single. Yes it might sound dated now but I bet it would have got a hell.of.a lot.of.coverage and become part of the public psyche more than HTA did...

 

Agreed, although i dont find it dated at all. Sure it sounds very mid 70s, but blasting it on great Bower & Wilkins soundsystem it sounds amazing, quite frankly.



-- Edited by andy on Thursday 24th of December 2015 08:43:28 AM

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Eamonn


The Only Way is Down

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Cocaine Socialism
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I think he means lyrically it's dated as the lyrics are quite specific. As a stop-gap single in spring '97 coming up to the general election it would have been a clever riposte to the"Things Can Only Get Better " crap that Labour had taken as their manifesto song and also would have made Noel's visit to Downing Street look even more silly. Anything vaguely catchy put out by Pulp at this period would have been a hit and might have taught kids to learn how to be cynical towards politics. Having said all that I still prefer Glory Days.



-- Edited by Eamonn on Thursday 24th of December 2015 12:34:34 PM

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