‘Something Changed’ – Pulp

Gill writes:

Welcome to the song that I always associate with this time of year.

September. The month that often sees changes that we know are coming but are not quite sure what, and how, those changes will be.

As a child, it was the month that brought changes – a new teacher, a new class, a new friend.

As a teenager it often brought a change in relationships, a change of look, a change in your life’s journey – college, university, job.

As an adult, it’s often brought a sense of renewal too. Maybe it’s because of the tracks laid down in earlier years but there’s still a sense of refreshment and change in the air in September.

This song perfectly captures the ‘what if’ moments in life. Those split second moments where we make a decision that has implications for ever. As Jarvis sings:

Oh, I could have stayed at home and gone to bed
I could have gone to see a film instead
You might have changed your mind and seen your friends
Life could have been very different but then
Something changed

September is the month when I said to my flatmate “Yes, I don’t mind your friend staying in your room while you’re away so he can look for new university digs” – which consequently led to me and him saying ‘I will’ roughly a year later. What if I’d said ‘No, I’d rather have the place to myself for a week’? – where would I be now?

Who knows – but I love that this song ventures into areas that theologians continue to debate even today. Are things predetermined or of free will? Are moments like this completely random or a God incident?

Do you believe that there’s someone up above?
And does he have a timetable directing acts of love?

Well before you head off down the rabbit hole of debate with the great minds of Calvin, Luther, Arminius, Kierkegaard, St Augustine and so on, why don’t we just take a moment to marvel at the mystery of life and of love. That we are only human. That we don’t understand it all and as St Augustine once said ‘We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand? If you do understand, then it is not God.’

Earlier this year, Jarvis Cocker (lead singer of Pulp) said in Rolling Stone Magazine about this song that it’s “the one Pulp song that seems to crop up. I’ve been stopped by a lot of people who tell me that song was played at their wedding. They walked down the aisle to it!”

Perhaps the words of the last verse capture a tiny bit of the wonder of life and the journeys we take. And that’s something that we can all relate to.

When we woke up that morning we had no way of knowing
That in a matter of hours we’d change the way we were going
Where would I be now, where would I be now if we’d never met?
Would I be singing this song to someone else instead?
I don’t know but like you just said
Something changed

Pulp’s website is https://www.pulppeople.com/