[15] King Boy D (Drummond) voices the words into the microphone of a backpack field radio worn by a child shop mannequin at his side wearing military uniform and a helmet labelled "KLF".

[15] Cars and trucks rush by, leaving a trail of spray because evidently The JAMs are performing on one lane of a road; they are lit by the headlights of several nearby stationary vehicles.

The seven-minute first section is a heavy, pounding industrial techno track, over which Drummond lists the names of some towns and cities in the North of England.

The instrumentation is in a minor key and is frequently discordant, featuring synthesised sounds reminiscent of passing heavy goods vehicles and train whistles.

[22][18] Record Mirror hailed the original club version as "the hardest rave track of the year" and as "one mind-blowing mental onslaught".

[11] In awarding the 1991 release "single of the week", NME said: "The Scotsman [Drummond] picks over the place names with gruesome relish, the backing track pummels and tweaks, blasts and buffets him round the furthest God-forsaken reaches of this demi-paradise, this land of kings, this sceptred isle, this England... A thing of feverish, fiendish irreverence and conceptual genius...".

A deadpan catalogue of northern towns, recited over rainy-motorway techno, suddenly blossoms into a rendition of Blake's Jerusalem, as if arriving at some socialist rave utopia.".

[23] In 2005, Freaky Trigger placed it at number 81 in their list of "The Top 100 Songs of All Time," with a writer for the webzine saying the record is "not a fucking joke.

"[24] In 1999, the website's founder Tom Ewing also included the song at number 75 in his list of the "Top 100 Singles of the 1990s", saying "“It’s Grim Up North” is a document of one of pop's most individual bands at their imaginative peak.

[26][17] First verse "Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne, Burnley, Bradford, Buxton, Crewe, Warrington, Widnes, Wigan, Leeds, Northwich, Nantwich, Knutsford, Hull, Sale, Salford, Southport, Leigh, Kirkby, Kearsley, Keighley, Maghull, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Oldham, Lancs (Lancaster), Grimsby, Glossop, Hebden Bridge."

"Brighouse, Bootle, Featherstone, Speke, Runcorn, Rotherham, Rochdale, Barrow, Morecambe, Macclesfield, Lytham St Annes, Clitheroe, Cleethorpes, the M62."

), and Leigh, Ossett, Otley, Ilkley Moor, Sheffield, Manchester, Castleford, Skem (Skelmersdale), Doncaster, Dewsbury, Halifax (split into two parts to fit the measures as "Hally... fax"), Bingley, Bramhall, are all in the North."