"Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have)?"

There's no messing around here. From the moment the song just materialises at full speed until the final note, this is a jittery, straight-ahead, clattering pop-punk classic. in fact, you'd be hard-pressed to call it a punk record at all: the pop sensibilities are too good, the harmonies (harmonies? on a punk song?) are terrific and the lyric is just perfect: "You spurn my natural emotions/You make me feel like dirt/And that hurts/And if I cause a commotion/I run the risk of losing you/And that's worse." And ever since this song, the boys-needs-girl thing has been a rich vein for writers to tap. Pete Shelley's voice is completely non-punk. It isn't a pop voice at all, in fact, but the beauty of punk was that you didn't have to have any kind of voice to sing. It's a vulnerable, whiny, needy kind of voice which means it fits the song like a glove. Two minutes and forty-three seconds of bliss.