I've written this article comparing certain themes in Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker's lyrics on the authority of being a Moz fan of 15 years and a (serious) Pulp fan of, um, about a week. I was fascinated by how much the two have in common as lyricists - besides being brilliant and witty. (Even Cocker's "comeback" song, "Cunts Are Still Running The World," available on his MySpace site, bears a remarkable resemblance in subject matter and head-on lyrical attack to one of Morrissey's comeback songs, "The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores." Yes, we, your heroes, have been gone, but we return to you to find that things are as bad as ever - shows you how much you need us, doesn't it now?)

The comparisons are grouped by topic, with a main song example for each topic:

1. Rescue me from domesticity

This Charming Man-His 'n' Hers

Early songs (well, early in Pulp's success) about sexual fantasies in which the singer-protagonist is rescued from the threat of domesticity by a mysterious deliverer. Or at least that seems to be part of what's going on in "His 'n' Hers", which alternates a vivid, if fragmented, description of a sexual encounter with the chorus non sequitur, "I was stood in the queue when you came / Delivered me from His 'n' Hers / You pulled the units down / Delivered me from His 'n' Hers / When I saw his face / It made me feel better." (Incidentally, the sudden mysterious switch to the female perspective in the last line is reminiscent of Morrissey's gender-fuck chorus to "Handsome Devil", which renders it impossible to summarize the song as being about gay sex.)

"This Charming Man" is Morrissey's fairy tale about a naïve young cyclist who's rescued by an older man, a Prince Charming in a "charming car" instead of on a white steed, who builds his self-confidence and attempts to resolve his sexual ambivalence by seducing him into a gay encounter. (I find this interpretation strengthened by opening line "Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate," which to me suggests paralysis induced by sexual irresolution, i.e., bisexuality, as well as masturbation induced by sexual paralysis - but that's just me and my English major background!) The charming man likewise tries to rescue him from the sexual paralysis induced by acute self-consciousness ("Why pamper life's complexity / When the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat?"), and from the trap of domesticity and adulthood ("He said, 'Return the ring'").

All of these things find their parallel in "His 'n' Hers". Jarvis is seemingly delivered from the domestic furnishings section of a department store by a woman looking for stranger sex; she tells him, when he goes into schizophrenic ramblings about the things that frighten him after their encounter, "You stupid - I want you to touch me"; and the gender perspective switch at the end of the chorus suggests (an interpretation supported by his interviews) he may want deliverance from gender difference altogether.

2. Pugnacity

Still Ill-Razzmatazz

These two songs feature the most startlingly, hilariously aggressive opening lines in pop:

Jarvis goes on to continue to obliterate the ex who left him with insult after insult, resembling Morrissey's spite for a lover who abandoned him in "Unhappy Birthday": "I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday / Coz you're evil and you lie / And if you should die / I may feel slightly sad / But I won't cry."

3. Taking charge

Handsome Devil-Pencil Skirt

In these fabulous songs the effete singers take charge sexually to thrilling effect. "I'll be around when he's not in town / I'll show you how you're doing it wrong" Cocker brags. "I crack the whip and you skip / But you deserve it, you deserve it, deserve it, deserve it" Morrissey swaggers. Maybe only Cocker and Morrissey can simultaneously turn you on with their swagger and (deliberately) make you laugh at its outrageousness.

Cocker winds up:

And Morrissey:

Cocker and Morrissey assume the role of instructors. Cocker knows that sex should be beautiful, not ugly, and Morrissey knows that sex isn't "much" in the grand scheme of things. Still, hot is hot.

Morrissey and Cocker wouldn't be half as appealing to their fans if they were "merely" sensitive. Their swagger and aggression is that of the misfit with an inferiority-superiority complex, contemptuous of the herd and, lacking peer acceptance, forced to found their confidence on their individualism. I'm reminded of my favourite line of Hamlet's, "Although I am not spleenative and rash / Yet have I something in me / Which let your wisdom fear." Or as Cocker puts it in "Common People," "Like a dog lyin' in a corner / They'll bite ya and never warn ya."

4. Female perspective

Girl Afraid-Live Bed Show

Although he's known for writing "genderless" songs, Morrissey actually hasn't written much specifically from the female perspective: just "Girl Afraid" (the first half), "This Night Has Opened My Eyes," and "What She Said," during The Smiths, and "November Spawned A Monster," "Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning," and "The Father Who Must Be Killed" during his solo career. Jarvis, on the other hand, writes no less than three songs from the female perspective ("Live Bed Show," "Monday Morning," and "Underwear") on Different Class alone.

There's a tradition in British pop of male singer-songwriters taking the female perspective to write about loneliness and the emptiness of mundane existence: McCartney's "For No One", "Eleanor Rigby", and "She's Leaving Home"; The Stones' "Mother's Little Helper". Morrissey and Cocker continue this tradition, but Cocker alters and complicates it by writing about female sexual desire.

"Girl Afraid" is a thing of genius, a minute, bleakly comic kitchen sink drama/Beckett play in which a girl and boy in a relationship misunderstand each other and vow in their separate rooms "I'll never make that mistake again." The equally brilliant "Live Bed Show" tells the story of a woman whose husband or lover has lost sexual interest in her and abandoned her to lonely nights, although she's so little self-reflective that she's barely conscious of the change: "Something beautiful left town / And she doesn't even know its name."

The Smiths' "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" might be compared to Pulp's "Lipgloss", both assuming sympathy for a pregnant woman abandoned by her lover. Jarvis seems to be harsh towards his character, but really he's reflecting her own fears. Morrissey is so involved with his character's plight that he empathizes with her urge to kill the child, which is responsible for one of the most shocking opening lines in pop: "In a river the colour of lead / Immerse the baby's head." Pulp's "Monday Morning", meanwhile, sympathizes with a working girl (also possibly pregnant?) with no future beyond the endless round of work and going out: "Is this the light of a new day dawning? / A future bright that you can walk in? / No it's just another Monday morning / Do it all over again!" And Jarvis asks a question similar to Morrissey's in "The Boy With the Thorn In His Side" ("And when you want to live / How to start / Where to go / Who do you need to know?"):

Questions anyone who ever left school and found "real life" a surprising disappointment will be painfully familiar with - which is presumably most of us.

But "Underwear" might be Cocker's most complex and difficult female-perspective song. It's difficult to describe what it's about, because in the verses Cocker assumes his character's perspective, but in the chorus he takes her as an object of desire, which confuses the listener into thinking there's some kind of relationship between them. The story told by the song couldn't be simpler: a young woman goes to her lover's rooms and waits for him to arrive for their tryst (or it might be their first meeting). The psychology, however, is complex, with the woman uncertain about what she wants now that desire is going to turn into reality, yet feeling that she can't stop what she's started. "I couldn't stop it now / There's no way to get out / He's standing far too near," sings Cocker, making the encounter sound almost like a rape. But the chorus ends, "I'd give my whole life to see it / Just you, stood there / Only in your underwear." Cocker may deeply empathize with his female character (and indeed her difficulty in giving herself to her lover, which many women, I should think, can identify with, is Cocker's own as well, to judge from interviews and other songs), but he's still the voyeur, violating her in his own way.

Part 2: coming soon. The Allure of Laddism, Oedipal Politics, Anthems, Nostalgia, Transparent Defences and Psychological Rape

Read an interview with Elise Moore, Canadian playwright: click here.