PulpIntro - The Gift Recordings

Susan catches the bus into town at ten-thirty a.m. She sits on the back seat. She looks at
the man in front's head and thinks how his fat wrinkled neck is like a large carrot
sticking out from the collar of his shirt. She adds up the numbers on her bus ticket to
see if they make twenty-one, but they don't. Maybe she shouldn't bother going to school at
all, then. Her friends will be in the yard with their arms folded on their chests,
shielding their breasts to try and make them look bigger, whilst the boys will be too busy
playing football to notice. The bus is waiting on the High Street when suddenly it begins
to rain torrentially and it sounds like someone has emptied about a million packets of
dried peas on top of the roof of the bus. 'What if it just keeps raining,' she
thinks to herself, 'and it was just like being in an aquarium except it was all the
shoppers and office-workers that were floating passed the window instead of fish?'
She's still thinking about this when the bus goes passed Caroline Lee's house where there
was a party last week. There were some German exchange students there who were very
mature; they all ended up jumping out of the bedroom window. One of them tried to get her
to kiss him on the stairs, so she kicked him. Later she was sick because she drunk too
much cider. Caroline was drunk as well; she was pretending she was married to a tall boy
in glasses, and she had to wear a polo-neck for three days afterwards to cover up the
love-bite on her neck. By now the bus is going passed the market. Outside is a man who
spends all day forcing felt-tip pens into people's hands and then trying to make them pay
for them. She used to work in the pet shop, but she got sacked for talking to boys when
she was supposed to be working. She wasn't too bothered though, she hated the smell of the
rabbits anyway. 'Maybe this bus won't stop,' she thinks, 'and I'll stay on
it until I'm old enough to go into pubs on my own. Or it could drive me to a town where
people with black hair drink Special Brew and I can make lots of money by charging fat old
men five pounds a time to look up my skirt. Oh, they'll be queuing up to take me out to
dinner...' I suppose you think she's just a silly girl with stupid ideas, but I
remember her in those days. They talk about people with a fire within and all that stuff,
well, she had that alright. It's just that no-one dared to jump into her fire; they would
have been consumed. Instead, they put her in a corner and let her heat up the room,
warming their hands and backsides in front of her, and then slagging her off around town.
No-one ever really got inside Susan, and, and, she always ended up getting off the bus at
the terminus and then walking home.

Ba bababa ba bababa ...
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
The night was ended
He needed her undressed
He said he loved her
She tried to look impressed
After the break-up
It's just something you do to stop the night-time from falling down on you
The world is ending, the sky is falling down
She's at the station because she's leaving town
Oh you could stop her if you get out of bed
She wants to see you at least that's what she said
You've got a minute at the very most and she's gone gone gone gone gone yes she's going
away
Oh yes she's going away
Oh yes she's going away, oh yes she's going away
And now it's over 'cos I just saw the end
I saw the credits, I turned around and then I saw her running coming back to me
The sky exploded but I couldn't see
The world is ending, the sky is falling down
She's at the station because she's leaving town
Oh you could stop her if you get out of bed
She wants to see you at least that's what she said
You've got a minute at the very most and she's gone and she's gone and she's gone
Oh yes she's going away
Ba bababa ba bababa ...
Yeah yeah yeah yeah ...

You said you wanted some space ...
Well is this enough for you? ...
This is what you've waited for ...
No dust collecting in the corners ...
No cups of tea that got cold before you drank them ...
Tonight ... travelling at the speed of thought ...
We're going to escape into the stars ...
It doesn't matter if the lifts are out of order ...
Or the car won't start ...
We're rising up ... above the city ... over forests ... over fields ...
Rivers and lakes ... into the clouds ... and up above us ...
The whole universe is shining a welcome ...
Did you ever really think this day would happen ...
After days trying to sell washing-machines on your own? ...
It looked like we never left the ground ...
But we're weightless ... floating free ...
We can go wherever we want ... solar systems ... constellations ... galaxies ...
I'll race you to the nearest planet ...
How may times have you wished upon a star? ...
Now you can touch it ... you can touch the stars ...
Go on ... don't be afraid ...
'I only wanted some space' ...
Well is this enough for you? ... Is it ? ...
Well the stars are bright ... but they don't give out any heat ...
The planets ... are lumps of rock ... floating in a vacuum ...
Yeah, space is cold ... when you're on your own ...
I think it's time to go home ... pulling my strings ...
Like a kite that flew too high ... and now it's time to come down ...
Look out below ...
Wait 'til I get back ...
You can see something ...
You can see space ... but now I know ... it's O.K. ...
Space is O.K. ... but I'd rather ... I'd rather get my ...
I'd rather get my kicks down below ... oh yeah ... come on ...

There's a picture by his first wife on the wall
Stripped floor-boards in the kitchen and the hall
A stain from last week's party on the stairs
No one knows who made it or how it ever got there
They were dancing with children round their legs
Talking business, books and records, art and sex
All things being considered you'd call it a success
You wore your black dress oh-oh oh-oh...
He's an architect and such a lovely guy and he'll stay with you until the day you die
And he'll give you everything you could desire
Oh well almost everything everything that he can buy
So you sometimes go out in the afternoon
Spend an hour with your lover in his bedroom hear old women rolling trolleys down the road
Back to Lyndhurst Grove Lyndhurst Grove Oh.

Intake Manor Park The Wicker Norton Freshville Hackenthorpe Shalesmoor Wombwell Catcliffe
Brincliffe Attercliffe Ecclesall Woodhouse Wybourn
[At this point, Candida starts talking...]
Pitsmoor Badger Wincobank Crookes Walkley Broomhill Oh!
[Candida, quoting from some book]
'I was only about eleven when this happened. We were living in a big block of flats
with a central courtyard. All the bedroom windows opened onto this court, and sometimes in
the middle of the night, in that building it sounded like a mass orgy. I may have only
been eleven, but no-one had to tell me what all that moaning and yelling was about. I'd
lie there mesmerised, listening to the first couple. Invariably, they'd wake up other
couples, and like some kind of chain reaction, within minutes the whole building was
fucking. I mean, have you ever heard other people fucking, and really enjoying it? It's a
marvellous sound. Not like in the movies, but when it's real. It's such a happy, exciting
sound.'

The city is a woman
Bigger than any other
Oh, sophisticated lady
Yeah, I wanna be your lover (not your brother, not your mother, yeah)
The sun rose from behind the gasometers at six-thirty a.m.
Crept through the gap in your curtains
And caressed your bare feet poking from beneath the floral sheets.
I watched it flaking bits of varnish from your nails
Trying to work it's way up under the sheets.
Jesus! Even the sun's on heat today; the whole city getting stiff in the building heat.
I just want to make contact with you
Oh that's all I wanna do
I just want to make contact with you
Oh that's all I wanna do Ow
Now I'm trying hard to meet her but the fares went up at seven
She is somewhere in the city somewhere watching television
Watching people being stupid, doing things she can't believe in
Love won't last 'til next installment
Ten o' clock on Tuesday evening
The world is going on outside, the night is gaping open wide
The wardrobe and the chest of drawers are telling her to go outdoors
He should have been here by this time, he said that he'd be here by nine
That guy is such a prick sometimes, I don't know why you bother, really.
Oh babe oh I'm sorry
But I had to make love to every crack in the pavement and the shop doorways
And the puddles of rain that reflected your face in my eyes.
The day didn't go too well.
Too many chocolates and cigarettes.
I kept thinking of you and almost walking into lamp-posts.
Why's it so hot? (Peace garden!)
The air coming up to the boil; rubbing up against walls and lamp-posts trying to get rid
of it.
Old women clack their tongues in the shade of crumbling concrete bus shelters.
Dogs doing it in central reservations and causing multiple pile-ups in the centre of town.

I didn't want to come here in the first place
But I've been sentenced to three years in the Housing Benefit waiting room.
I must have lost your number in the all-night garage
And now I'm wandering up and down your street, calling you name, in the rain
Whilst my shoes turn to sodden cardboard.
Where are you?
[Candida:] (I'm here!)
[Jarvis:] Where are you? (I'm here!) Where are you? (I'm here!)
Where are you? (I'm here!)
Where are you? (I'm here!) Where are you? (I'm here!) Where are you?
That's all I wanna do.
I'm still trying hard to meet you, but it doesn't look like happening
'cos the city's out to get me if I won't sleep with her this evening
Though her buildings are impressive and her cul-de-sacs amazing
She's had too many lovers and I know you're out there waiting
And now she's getting into bed he's had his chance now it's too late
The carpet's screaming for her soul, the darkness wants to eat her whole
Tonight must be the night it ends
Tomorrow she will call her friends and go out on her own somewhere
Who needs this shit anyway?
And listen I wandered the streets the whole night crying, trying to pick up your scent
Writing messages on walls and the puddles of rain reflected your face in my eyes.
We finally made it on a hill-top at four a.m.
The whole city is your jewellery-box; a million twinkling yellow street lights.
Reach out and take what you want; you can have it all.
Gee it's so hot tonight!
I didn't think we were gonna make it.
It was so bad during the day, but now I'm snug and warm under an eiderdown sky.
All the things we saw:
everyone on Park Hill came in unison at four-thirteen a.m. and the whole block fell down.
The tobacconist caught fire, and everyone in the street died of lung cancer.
The grunts from the T-reg Chevette; you bet, you bet, yeah you bet. Mmmmm. Yeah.
All I wanna do is make contact with you. Tomorrow, are we gonna?
That's all I wanna do...
I was trying hard to meet her but the fares went up at seven
She was somewhere in the city somewhere watching television
Watching people being stupid doing things she can't believe in
Love won't last 'til next installment ten o'clock on Tuesday evening
The world was going on outside
The night was waiting open wide
The wardrobe and the chest of drawers were telling her to go outdoors
He should have been there by that time, he said that he'd be there by nine
That guy is such a prick sometimes
Yeah Jesus!
Oh baby babe I wanna I wanted to tell you that there's nothing
There's nothing to worry about because we can we can we can we can get it together oh yeah

Oh we got it together tonight yeah we made it.