Set the Controls for the Heart of the Pelvis

Jarvis Cocker co-wrote and sang the song that opens Oedipus Schmoedipus, and a short reprise, Set the Controls Again, closes the album. The Quietus described it as a driving fusion of rock, gospel and funk. NME called it a dangerously funky groove-a-thon, with Cocker in pervy mode pleading to be saved from his own hand. Pitchfork heard it as gospelicious and sexadelic, and thought it made Adamson's cinematic gothiness clear straight away.

In frieze, Michael Bracewell quoted Cocker's lyric about being saved from glossy photographs and from a mother's laugh as part of the album's study of love and lust. Adamson counted Cocker, with Nick Cave and Billy MacKenzie, among people he looks up to for song, voice, character and humour.