How did Jarvis Cocker come up with those era-defining dance moves?
God bless Jarvis Cocker and his wiggly dance moves. Nestled somewhere between David Bowie, Rick from The Young Ones and a sleazy variety show host, the Pulp frontman developed a potent performance style that distinguished his group from their Britpop peers. Nobody else was pulling those kinds of moves. Suede’s Brett Anderson certainly knew how to shimmy up a storm, but most of the frontmen of the day remained fairly static. So, where did Cocker learn his era-defining moves?
Speaking on The Adam Buxton Show in support of his new loft-bound memoir Good Pop, Bad Pop, Cocker revealed that a lot of his dancing was mimicry. “I used to watch Top of The Pops and stuff, and so that was the first time I saw bands performing, you know, the first time I ever saw a band on a stage,” he explained.
Cocker added: “People on Top of The Pops would be acting up to the camera a bit and moving more than they would in a normal concert. Also, because they were miming, so they didn’t have to worry about missing a note.”
That gloriously hammy dancing formed the foundation of Cocker’s own style. Remember when David Bowie pointed at the camera during his 1972 performance of ‘Starman’? I give you Cocker’s ‘wiggly finger’ move, which appeared in music videos for tracks like ‘Babies’ and ‘Common People’.
But as any shy dancer will tell you, you can’t learn to dance on TV alone. “It probably evolved from dancing in The Limit, Cocker added, referring to a now-demolished underground venue just a stone’s throw from Sheffield’s The Saddle pub. “I realised I could dance and that you could react to music, and so you could react to your own music as you were performing it. It’s like, as it passes through your body on its way to come out your mouth, it sort of sets off these things, and it’s a nice feeling because it’s as though you’re riding it as it’s happening. It’s pleasurable”.
The Limit began life as a punk venue in 1978. However, by the time Cocker was dancing there in the mid-1980s, it had gained a reputation as one of Sheffield’s premiere goth venues. According to Cocker, “It was the only place for alternative music, but it had to cater to everybody, so you’d have a section where they’d play three psychobilly songs, and so all these guys in plaid shirts with the sleeves cut off would come on and throw each other around while there was a psychobilly track on. And then it’d go to goth, and then it’d do new romantic. It’d give everyone a fair crack of the whip.”
“It was because music was playing, and everyone was dancing, and sometimes you would run out of things to say, I suppose, maybe that’s why I first started dancing,” Cocker continued. “And then, when I did it, I got into it because I’d always been into music, but it was more like you listened to it. And then you were suddenly in this place where it was really loud and there was bass and you could actually feel it; if you stood really close to the speakers at the back, you could feel it making your trousers flap about. So it was like, ‘wow,’ this is a whole new dimension to music, like a physical force, you can feel actually feel the floor moving. So, that was great because then you were feeling music in your body, not just in your head.”
Remembering the way Cocker carried himself at Pulp’s peak, it’s hard to imagine him ever being a shy dancer, but that may have been the case initially. “Everybody’s self-conscious when they first try to dance,” he said. “You think that everyone’s looking at you, but then you suddenly realise everybody’s not bothered about you at all, and, anyway, it’s quite dark, and there’s some lights flashing on and off. It’s great because, if you keep going after maybe one or two songs, then your brain will just start to turn off a bit, and then you just react to it physically.”
