Arctic Monkeys: 10 Underrated B-Sides (That Deserved To Be Album Tracks)

Next to the dreamlike and sometimes trippy lyrics that characterise Humbug, the more straightforward Catapult might have served as a shock, while pleasing fans who missed the simple storytelling of Arctic Monkeys' first two albums

Not that there's anything simple about Catapult. The song's desert grunge seems to fly straight off a movie soundtrack, as it warns about the dangers of falling for a man whose reputation precedes him.

At turns a continuation of Brianstorm (whose "smooth" titular character is an "unforecasted storm"), and a commentary about celebrity fetishization ("you would queue up to listen to him pissing"), Catapult is about a man who oozes seduction but whose "heart was cut out of the same stone" as his jaw.

The character's magnetism ("you cannot turn away but nice try") is at once disconcerting and intriguing, his very footsteps creating "a dust track waiting for betrayal".

The storytelling is tight but, as with all Arctic Monkeys songs, the music forms the song's central appeal. The increasingly claustrophobic guitar, whose riffs wrap around the song, mimics the strange-hold charm of the central character, constricting and arresting the listener just as the nameless man's fans find themselves arrested by his ominous charm.

A B-side that could have easily fit into the soundtrack of a contemporary Western, this one really should have made the cut.