Does anyone? Fumbled antics in a tent, forgettable experiences washed away by a lifetime of experience yet to be touched. Pulp dared to ask. Do You Remember the First Time?. An initially obvious question posed by their desire to hit into the core of sexuality and openness, a trend which would continue and develop well beyond expectations set by their breakthrough album His ‘n’ Hers. Decades on and the track is given further retrospective life by at-the-time unreleased single Background Noise. Jarvis Cocker, now 60 and still swinging arms and kicking legs on stages across the globe with Pulp, can no longer remember the first time, or the last time. “The way we got from here to there…” he suggests. It never used to be that way. Sharp minds of old latched onto the few experiences.
Scrappy intakes and a fixation on the few intimate moments dominate Do You Remember the First Time? – one of many thoroughly mature tracks from Pulp tackling jealousy and a lack of tact. The band is in fine form for this one and crafts their best single of all. Lust and fear all bubbling over on a storied song stemming from those ineffective desires to head home with someone who, from the perspective of the protagonist, is being bored into mental redundancy by a less-than-stellar partner. Toys which fill the hole they cannot and an eventual spiral into bargaining provide an example of Cocker’s neediest lyrics, and it works supremely well. Given the context of His ‘n’ Hers, a protest of matching furniture and placid living for couples of the 1990s, pleading for an unnamed love interest to “save a piece for me” is stunning.
An exemplary showcase of how even those with the tools and talent to look elsewhere are sucked into the problems of their surroundings. Sex and romance are separated and studied by Cocker and company, whose staple setlist song is a wonderful rattling of the cage which houses alleged security in relationships. “…it makes good sense for you to live together…” as Cocker mocks the often-situational reason for ongoing relations, Do You Remember the First Time? is ready and waiting to burst. Russell Senior provides some all-time great guitar work here, a chorus hook which lingers on in the mind as the repetition of the will-they, won’t-they homebound tension builds. Pulp managed to keep things realistic, the suggestions of coupling up just that, a suggestion. Even Disco 2000 had a tinge of envy in its hookups.
Licking the wounds by spitting venom is one way of working through the often-disregarded troubles of modern relationships but Pulp captured how getting over someone it never happened with can be tougher. Cocker wails against what could have been on one of the finest tracks he has ever penned. Ed Buller had his hands on the brightest sparks of Britpop and guided them to the noisy highs Pulp and Suede would soon hit. His lightning-in-a-bottle production here gives the instrumentals room to breathe on a track guided by its manipulating your own emotions. Gaslight yourself into believing someone could be interested, dissatisfied by their homely mannerisms and longing to go home with you and not back to their matching towels or coffee table books.
