Originally released as the b-side to A Little Soul, Cocaine Socialism eventually wound up on a Pulp album when it was included in the re-issued and expanded This is Hardcore (Deluxe 2CD editon) in 2006.

Written after Pulp were asked (more likely, begged) to be associated in some way with Labour’s triumphant 1997 election campaign, and no doubt henceforth expected to endorse Tony Blair and New Labour in the heartiest of terms, Cocaine Socialism is Jarvis Cocker’s response in glorious f***youcolour.

As This is Hardcore was to Different Class, so is Cocaine Socialism to Common People: shared DNA, twisted far out of shape.

Are you a socialist?

Well you sing about common people

so can you bring them to my party

and get them all to sniff this

and all I’m really saying is

Come on and rock the vote for me

In a brilliant moment of unwittingly proving Jarvis’ point, Labour press representative Julie Crowley responded to the lyric, saying “I don’t even understand half of it, to be honest”.

Speaking to the NME Jarvis said:

I’ve always voted Labour, but I wasn’t prepared to use my position in that way. It’s not appropriate, in the same way that it’s not appropriate for Tony Blair to give awards at the Brits and stuff like that. To me it just stinks of, Come on kids, I’m hip.

(Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/pulp/244#kfXVj7X8QTvBzZPZ.99)

As ever, it’s right song wrong day for me, after last night’s national showing of PULP: a Film about Life, Death & Supermarkets, but a puppy is not just for christmas, and the tangled mind and brilliant world of Jarvis Cocker and Pulp should not be for one night only.