Help the Aged

Like so many of Pulp's songs, this conveys how everything we hold dear will wither and die, and we are destined for a "lonely place". All the romances, joys and sorrows we have are temporary, and will be worn away with time. We "try to forget that nothing lasts forever", because we don't want to see that nothing is eternal. I think that, like "Glory Days", it is a call to people to enjoy life while they are young, because it's all the time we really have.

It's one of the centerpieces of "This Is Hardcore", seemingly a concept album about reaching thirty and beyond and suddenly realizing you're not young anymore, that what you did maybe didn't lead you to what you expected, and its consecuences... if not one, the closest thing to a middle-age crisis. In "Help The Aged", Jarvis pretty much materializes his fears and uncertainties typical of this crisis ("the sound of someone losing the plot", as stated on "The Fear") through a feeling of sympathy for "the aged", old people. He urges (seemingly, to the youth) for them to be cared, to be given comfort... " 'cause one time they were just like you"... Of course, he realizes he's becoming one of those "aged" ones, that's what generates his sorrowful sympathy towards them. "Funny how it all falls away", he sighs in an ironic resignation, contemplating his own aging. He's just discovered, much against his own will, that "nothing lasts forever", not even youth. He himself has seen in the eyes of the aged his own future, "where he's headed", and he warns the youngsters the bad omen: "and it's such a lonely place". As for the verse naming "an older lover", he's simply recommending to some girl to pick up an older lover, since he can offer "experience", despite "looking rough". Probably it's a pick-up speech he tries to use on a girl to woo her. Since he's not considered young anymore and knows it, he looks at the aged and tries to emphasize whatever virtues he sees on them.

perhaps he got sad to realize that when he was young he didn´t care bout his parents-grandfathers.........or he visited an elder people assylum and felt the lonelyness of it, and he saw himself being there

beautiful song indeed, and it´s a message to all youth, telling them "you idiots, appreciate old people, they were just like you, and you will all be like them, so.....fucking respect them and help the, spend time with them"

and it´s an everyday thing in europe.......old people abandonned in an appartment by their sons.....left alone and dying slowly.....so cruel....that when they die, sometimes, neighbours only realized the really died when their bodies start to decompose and the smell coming from their appartments is damn strong.

nobody respects old folks anymore. it's about growing old, dying and karma.

this has got to be the best song. i guess it has a message, but i just like how it goes so much

It's about Jarvis's own conflict of getting old and be left alone.

It's about an older man trying to convince a younger woman that she should be with him. I work in a bar and I see it all the time. They try to brag that they are better and more accomplished because they are older rather than actually trying to seduce them properly. It's a pathetic plea that usually backfires.

It's about an older man trying to convince a younger woman that she should be with him. I work in a bar and I see it all the time. They try to brag that they are better and more accomplished because they are older rather than actually trying to seduce them properly. It's a pathetic plea that usually backfires.

today i heard this song after a long time period and in blew me away again like it did back then. one of the greatest lines ever is: 'One time they were just like you Drinking, smoking cigs and sniffing glue'. you can't have any humour if you do not like this one! simply great kind of dealing with a problem that wil occur to the most of us.

Actually in a interview, he said he wrote it as a semi-midlife crisis. He wrote it at thirty-three/thirty-four, and its basically to feel sorry for himself that he was getting older.