Push Upstairs

This song centres around a guy in a club, determined to pull. He's probably in a long-distance relationship with a woman called Tina ('Tina lives in Berlin') which he feels isn't working out because he rarely talks to her ('her voice so seldom on my machine' - machine presumably meaning answerphone). So, he goes to the club, intent on scoring ('I'm on the market'). Karl Hyde evokes the experience of pulling in a club really well - 'words move fast and wild and clouds move thin between us' - you can picture everything feeling speeded up because of the music and strobe lights and the speed/ecstasy you may have taken, and the 'clouds' created by the smoke machines slightly obscuring your view of each other, making the whole experience seem surreal. There's sexual imagery too - 'a salty skin for a seed' probably refers to semen, while the 'fat circles' are clearly the breasts of the woman our subject is chatting up. They're smiling at each other, all loved up, and 'her voice so intentionally' states that she's clearly interested in him. Then, 'these are my intentions' followed by 'pushing' lets us now that his intentions are to have sex with the woman he's just met, although the 'pushing' probably refers to the dancing they do, sexily grinding against each other. Then, we get a sense of this guy's fragile, unstable state of mind. He becomes convinced that he's already seen the woman he's about to pull, and that she was waiting for him all along, like some kind of saviour. He even suggests she may be an angel because mentions the 'tips of your wings.' The experience becomes transformed in his mind into a kind of deliverance, or a quasi-religious experience. 'Coming through the tiny holes, your number/your finger' could refer to the 'tiny holes' suggested by the cloud from the smoke machine, the cloud that partially separates the two of them. So he sees her phone number slipped to him on a bit of paper, coming through these 'holes.' But at the same time, he's haunted by his feelings for Tina in Berlin, as in a sense he imagines this new girl is Tina. Tina, who rarely phones him, was actually 'waiting for [him] to call' and the 'tiny holes' she's coming through are actually the telephone cables. Even though in reality she is far away in Berlin, in his mind she is close by, on the other side of the cloud. But soon, our subject's attention is drawn to a dolled-up, plastic looking blonde ('blue plastic girl'). This fake, plastic girl has hit a raw nerve. He imagines she has some kind of power over him '[she's] carryin me.' To be so fascinated and controlled by this superficial, though attractive, girl reveals him to be equally plastic ('A grey plastic someone'). He feels he has returned to being 'someone I used to be/a grey plastic someone' - i.e. someone who feels jaded ('grey') and is so out of touch with his real self as to be fake and unreal ('plastic'). Finally, he watches the pitiful and sinister spectacle of the same blonde girl, putting on some kind of show. She's made up with lots of lipstick for 'the boyfriend' who is probably some arrogant and manipulative guy with a professional veneer ('he's professionally poised'). She puts on a show for him, dancing provocatively and probably skimpilly dressed. Several people in the club watch her, and she's very much aware of being watched, and she probably plays on that. Calling the people watching 'the faces' makes the whole experience seem cold and impersonal. All in all, this is a song about a night spent in a club, seen through the eyes of a guy who has an idealistic view of love, but who has his dream shattered when he quickly becomes aware of the cold, cynical nature of what he sees at the club. The woman who flaunts herself like a whore, the people who are transfixed by it, and the impersonal, animalistic copping off with each other - all of this impinges on his consciousness. The dark, pounding music reinforces the sinister subject matter of the song.

Totally agreed,nobody could describe tit better!