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when jarvis cocker yelps,
aroused by acrylic,
remembering,
in kodachrome,
the first time.

when he tries to control
his sexual urges,
adolescence
drawing him surely,
irresistibly back.

when he revels
in illicit afternoons
under eiderdowns,
when his voice is
distorted by desire.

when he doles out
romantic advice
to someone else’s
girlfriend, forlornly
wishing to be noticed.

when he is thwarted,
passion unrequited,
and languishes in
the bittersweetness
of ‘I told you so’s.

when he resigns himself
to best friend status
and watches her
waste her youth
on someone unworthy.

when he talks to you
in a hollywood club
or sends you a postcard.
when he djs at a friend
of a friend’s birthday do.

when you ask if he’ll
give up smoking once
you’re married, and he says
something about filters
you don’t understand.

when you correspond
about sixth formers
in white lab coats and
your dad succumbing
for ever to prog rock.

when you and your sister
dance to songs that
actually mean something
at indie nights by the score
all through the nineties.

when he colours
his hair with glints
the shade of poppy
and the fans almost fall
through the balcony.

when, wearing sunglasses
on his head, he pokes fun
at the upper classes
or castigates those
who should know better.

when there is no one
else quite like him
for leavening disdain
with compassion,
a condiment of empathy.

when songs start in mid-
conversation and he beckons
the camera in closer,
confidentially
urging you: ‘listen’.

when he dissects
class divisions
with a scalpel of satire
but his tongue still
firmly in his cheek.

when, in a few years more
he’s what they like to call
a national treasure,
a sir ray davies or
a morrissey.jarvis

when there was never
a more heartfelt chorus
of ‘yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah’s,
when they somehow
kind of say it all.

More on Jarvis and Pulp on bashfulbadgersblog – lyrics; aside on his art school days, mentions here and here.