Music Maps

I really love Pulp, and so I was pretty excited to stumble upon PulpWiki this weekend, which “aims to become a comprehensive user-generated resource for everything related to the band.” It’s in-depth stuff (personally I’d like to see a bit more ‘trivia’ on there - and if you know where the cafe on the Common People sleeve was taken, then leave a comment on this post), and it made me wonder why the band haven’t featured on this blog yet when they have a huge back catalogue of songs which relate to places.

But instead of visiting Pulp’s native Sheffield, we’re going to take a trip to Camberwell - part of the London Borough of Southwark and the location of 59 Lyndhurst Grove, the title of a b-side from the band’s Razzmatazz single (a very rare find in its original format, but available on Intro: The Gift Recordings compilation).

59 Lyndhurst Road is the final part of a trio of tracks, Inside Susan, a story in three songs, preceded by Stacks and Inside Susan.

Jarvis Cocker uses the single’s sleevenotes to explain a little more about the story:

…following Susan from her Rotherham puberty through wild teen years in Sheffield to her eventual marriage and settling down somewhere on the outskirts of London. I played these songs to Susan the other day - she just laughed and said I was being spiteful because she wouldn’t sleep with me when we first met. She also said to tell you that she’s perfectly happy where she is at the moment, thank you very much.

We’ll hopefully be able to publish a photo of 59 Lyndhurst Grove very soon, but in the meantime you can enjoy a live performance of the track in question from 1993: