This is possibly the prototypical early Pulp song, displaying an uncharacteristically earnest and virginal persona for Jarvis. On “Wishful Thinking,” he admits feelings of loneliness and desire with admirable honesty. If only he had found a more elegant way of expressing them. Jarvis manages to exclaim “It turned me on,” not once but twice, without a trace of the winking lasciviousness he would later master. His fairly tone-deaf delivery of the chorus doesn’t help matters.
Nevertheless, “Wishful Thinking” has an endearingly rickety charm, espcially the Peel Sessions version highlighted by moody synthesizers. On It, the song instead features jazzy flute solos, the kind of thing the band would eschew moving forward.
Music From a Bachelor's Den 