The career of louche US rockers Urge Overkill got a huge jolt when their cover of Neil Diamond’s Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon was chosen to soundtrack a pivotal scene in Pulp Fiction, giving the Chicago quartet a mainstream hit and ensuring one of their songs is forever entwined with Tarantino’s masterpiece.
The film’s era-defining soundtrack was released 30 years ago this week, a few weeks before the director’s follow-up to Reservoir Dogs hit cinemas, and it remains an album that changed everything for Urge Overkill. They have a few people to thank for their inclusion. One, obviously, is veteran crooner Neil Diamond, who originally released the song in 1967. Urge Overkill were big fans, and not in an ironic way. They were actual fans. “We found a record of his named Velvet Glow And Spit,” the band’s Eddie Roeser told music site Pennyblackmusic. “We weren’t really aware that that song had been a minor hit and thought that was just a really bizarre song. Our version is very different compared to the original.”
