Section:GDN 12 PaGe:5 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 17:14 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
- The Guardian
Friday 6 September 2019 5
is “a song about tourism from the
perspective of a human statue”; at
some gigs they have performed the
track alongside one of the painted,
motionless and silent street artists
that Cocker approach ed on London’s
South Bank, leaving notes with
his phone number until one – who
paints himself in diagonal stripes- fi nally responded. Performing
alongside him is, Cocker says,
“strangely calming ”.
adopted Christ-like poses and
surrounded himself with children.
I tell him that after the abuse
allegations in Leaving Neverland ,
the incident seems eerily prophetic,
but Cocker insists he didn’t watch
the fi lm and “really doesn’t want
to talk about it”. Doesn’t he feel
somehow vindicated? “I don’t,
because I didn’t watch it.”
He is more comfortable addressing
how his 2006 song Cunts Are Still
Running the World has become a
touchstone in the Jarv Is live set.
Audiences bellow the chorus and
each night he introduces it by noting
“it feels even more relevant now”.
“A strangely common aspect
of people that get in power at the
moment is that they’re these weird
characters – ridiculous people in
a way – but people seem to fi nd
entertainment in that. And that’s
dangerous really. Politics has turned
into Game of Thrones and they like
all the skulduggery and stabbing
people in the back. I can’t see it
ending well.”
As a vocal remainer from a city
that narrowly voted leave, Brexit
hurts him deeply. “The UK has
always been divided but we’ve
always got on,” he sighs. “But now,
whatever happens, half the people
are going to be kinda livid about it.”
However, Cocker retains faith in,
well, common people. He points
out that Cunts Are Still Running
the World now ends positively with
the line “but not for long”, and on a
recent trip to the US – “a country that,
if you look through the prism of the
media, you think ‘Jesus Christ’” – he
was reminded that “most people are,
you know, lovely. It’s the political
landscape that needs to shift.”
To this end, Jarv Is concerts
feature an Extinction Rebellion stall,
at Cocker’s request. “I hate to say
this because I’ve voted Labour all
my life, but both Conservative and
Labour currently seem outmoded,
in a way. They were born in a time
when there was a big working class
in factories, who were dying at 35.
And they needed someone to stand
up for them. Other people thought
that was fi ne. But there’s the start
of a diff erent agenda. You’ve got
people who want to rape and pillage
the Earth and other people who
say: ‘Let’s conserve it, otherwise
we won’t have anywhere to live.’ So
that’s the battle now.”
There is a knock at the door.
Cocker has a meal to eat, a gig to play,
Extinction Rebellion to meet with.
The last time we spoke, towards the
end of Pulp, he was thoroughly fed
up. Is he enjoying all this again?
“I am,” he smiles as he gets up.
“Of course, now that I’ve said that I’ll
probably fall off stage.”
Music From Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday
Service is released on Ace Records on
27 SeptemberWizz ’s askance look at rave culture
(“Oh, is this the way the future’s
meant to feel / Or just 20,000 people
standing in a fi eld?”). “I wanted
to make them slightly more open-
ended and allow people to make
their own interpretations.”
Thus, Am I Missing Something?
(about “getting to a stage in life and
thinking: ‘Is this it?’”) may or may
not channel his own feelings of a
lack of fulfi lment. I Am PharoahPolitics has
turned into
Game of
Thrones –
I can’t see it
ending well
Striking a chord
... Cocker in the
Devil’s Arse;
(left) on stage
with Pulp, 1995ut of touch with pop music’
Cocker has always fi rmly believed
that being popular doesn’t mean you
can’t be off -kilter. Writing a book
about creativity – This Book is a
Song , which is due out next autumn- made him think about where his
ideas about pop music came from.
“And really they were from having
listened to the radio for as long as I
can remember.”
He describes recording his 2009
solo album Further Complications
with Nirvana/punk producer Steve
Albini, who was “aghast” when
Cocker told him he loved pop. “He
looked at me like it was the devil’s
music. Cos obviously from his point
of view it was everything that ruined
music.” But Cocker love s the fact
that “really strange records” such
as Laurie Anderson’s O Superman ,
which, despite being unashamedly
avant garde, got to No 2 in the UK
in 1981, used to be able to “capture
the public’s imagination and get in
the charts by the democratic act of
people ‘voting’ b y buying them”.
Cocker blames the death of the
singles chart he loved on its late-90s
manipulation by record companies,
who would price CD singles at 99p
on the week of release, then £3.99
thereafter: “Records would go in at
No 1 and disappear the next week
because nobody would pay full
price.” He admits to being “totally
out of touch with pop music – or
what people call pop now” and
says that streaming “has been an
interesting thing to get my head
around”. Initially, Jarv Is weren’t
going to make records at all. They
would be a live phenomenon, the
idea being: “ If people wanted to hear
these songs, they would have to be
there in the moment, because that’s
it.” But they started selling their
single Must I Evolve? (recorded live
in a cave near Sheffi eld called the
Devil’s Arse) at gigs and, gradually,
Cocker has come around because:
“The perfect recording of the perfect
pop song is still my holy grail.”
Live, Jarv Is throw in the odd Pulp
rarity but having put the band to
bed with a reunion tour in 2011 he
is in no rush to trade on old glories.
He quickly grew disillusioned with
fame and excess (“a lot of stuff
which was detrimental to actually
being creative,” he says, drily) and
refers to the band’s fi nal years as
“the bad old days”.
One incident from the period
has followed him around – the time
he invaded the stage at the 1996
Brit Awards, w iggling his bottom
in protest at Michael Jackson’s
performance, in which the starRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws