Sheffield: Sex City
by Pulp

Album: Babies B-Side (1992)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song deserves a mention as it remained fairly constant in the band's live show, from conception in 1992 on the first release of "Babies" as a single through to the final show at Motorpoint Arena in December 2012 - starting the encore, no mean feat as it had to follow "Common People" in the set.
  • The song itself is an interesting mix of spoken-word narrative, sung lyrics and sexual innuendo/noises. Part of the song sees keyboardist Candida Doyle reading a section from the 1973 book My Secret Garden, a compilation of female sexual fantasies.
  • Jarvis Cocker explained this unique song's conception in a 2003 interview with Mojo magazine: "Sometimes you write a song and you can't think of a tune but you like the music. So that's a cue for me to write a long stream of whatever, a few grunts and a little bit of singing at some point. It's OK, but it could have been done better. We got some good bass on it though 'cos this Rasta guy Zeebee, the house mixer at Island, was smoking a lot of dope and got that bass turned up.

    Was I actually having sex? Probably wasn't, actually, 'cos when I first came down to London my girlfriend went away for a year. You might think, young man in London at college? Gotta be getting some shagging. But for some reason I didn't really get it on. Sex isn't really written about much except in very clichéd or caricatured terms, rather than as a part of everyday life."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Glen Ballard

Glen BallardSongwriter Interviews

Glen Ballard talks about co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album, and his work with Dave Matthews, Aerosmith and Annie Lennox.

Sam Hollander

Sam HollanderSongwriter Interviews

The hitmaking songwriter/producer Sam Hollander with stories about songs for Weezer, Panic! At The Disco, Train, Pentatonix, and Fitz And The Tantrums.

Waiting For The Break of Day: Three Classic Songs About All-Nighters

Waiting For The Break of Day: Three Classic Songs About All-NightersSong Writing

These Three famous songs actually describe how they were written - late into the evening.

Roger McGuinn of The Byrds

Roger McGuinn of The ByrdsSongwriter Interviews

Roger reveals the songwriting formula Clive Davis told him, and if "Eight Miles High" is really about drugs.

Laura Nyro

Laura NyroSongwriting Legends

Laura Nyro talks about her complex, emotionally rich songwriting and how she supports women's culture through her art.

Jonathan Cain of Journey

Jonathan Cain of JourneySongwriter Interviews

Cain talks about the divine inspirations for "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Faithfully."