‘Sorted For E’s and Wizz’: How Pulp created the ultimate festival anthem
“Is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel? Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?” – Pulp
Whether it’s the lack of sleep, the overconsumption of fried food, or the cheap abundance of drugs, there is something about the festival experience that transcends all other forms of live music. Whether you’re knee-deep in mud in a DJ tent in the early hours of the morning, or becoming increasingly sunburnt in front of the main stage, some music was made to be shared in the open air, and Pulp’s 1995 single ‘Sorted For E’s and Wizz’ is one such festival anthem.
It was back in the hippie age of the 1960s that music festivals first emerged, when counterculture rock dominated the listening habits of young people, and standards of sanitation were somewhat lower, but it was during the 1990s that festivals, as we know them today, really kicked into gear. Owing to the rise of acid house and rave culture, the youth of the 1990s were gasping to share their MDMA-fueled peace and love with likeminded people, in various farms and fields across the United Kingdom.
Up north, in the industrial surroundings of Sheffield, Jarvis Cocker became acutely aware of that blossoming acid house scene during the early 1990s. Although the inherent sound of the city’s favourite indie outfit never truly embraced the repetitive rhythms or extended dance musics of the house scene, Cocker nevertheless found a wealth of inspiration in the scene’s penchant for love and togetherness as a form of rebellion.
Another momentous occasion in the age of that acid counterculture came in 1990, when Mancunian indie heroes The Stone Roses played their infamous open-air gig at Spike Island in Widnes; an era-defining occasion and arguably one of the most important outdoor concerts in British music history (even if the sound quality was, reportedly, terrible). Armed with the inspiration of that gig, and his experiences in the acid house era, Jarvis Cocker sought to create a Samuel Pepys-esque anthem to reflect the time.
‘Sorted for E’s and Wizz’ was built upon the foundations of music festivals, outdoor raves, and that fateful day at Spike Island. “[It’s] a phrase that a girl I met in Sheffield once told me,” Cocker later said of the song’s drugged-up title, “and she went to see The Stone Roses at Spike Island and I said ‘What do you remember about it?’ and she said, ‘Well, I just remember all these blokes walking around saying, is everybody sorted for E’s and wizz?’”.
In the way that only Cocker can, the songwriter turned that enterprising phrase into one of the defining tracks of the 1990s. Introduced for the very first time during Pulp’s Pyramid Stage slot at Glastonbury in 1995, the song immediately established itself as one best enjoyed standing with thousands of other people, swaying in the summer breeze.
There is something special in those lyrics which seemed deeply ingrained in festival culture, and as Pulp continue to perform incredible festival sets, such as their not-so-surprise set at Glastonbury this year, its tendency to make the hairs on your neck stand to attention has only increased with the passing of time.
There is often a lot of talk about music festivals not being what they once were, whether they’re too commercialised or simply too expensive these days, but ‘Sorted for E’s and Wizz’ takes the landscape of festival music back to its core; performed acoustically in a somewhat understated manner, particularly in comparison to something like ‘Disco 2000’ or ‘Common People’, which launched Pulp into the Britpop mainstream back in the 1990s.
So, while there are countless other artists who have made festival performances their prevailing skill, and there have been plenty of iconic festival sets performed over the decades, nothing sums up the beauty or togetherness of music festivals better than ‘Sorted for E’s and Wizz’, even 30 years on from its original release.
