Jarvis Cocker’s favourite John Lennon song
It is not controversial to suggest that The Beatles had a bigger impact on popular music than any other artist during the 20th century. Not only did the Fab Four pioneer self-penned pop songs, they acted as inspiration for many future generations of artists and musicians. One such inspired young musician was Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker.
Cocker had been a staunch music obsessive from a young age and, as is a staple for any British child of the 1960s and 1970s, was raised on a healthy diet of Lennon-McCartney pop songs. Liverpool’s finest export had sparked a wave of musical inspiration throughout the north of England during their tenure, at the same time as Jarvis was growing up in the Steel City of Sheffield.
As with any lifelong disciple of the group, Jarvis has his favourites. Answering the age-old ‘Who’s your favourite Beatle?’ question, the Pulp singer has repeatedly shared his youthful adoration for John Lennon. Speaking to Uncut, the singer shared, “John was my favourite Beatle. When I was a kid, I thought I’d like to be like him ’cause he had glasses. I thought that proves that you can be a pop star and wear glasses.”
Not all of Jarvis’ Beatles love was derived from the band’s eyewear. The songwriter also had a passion for Lennon’s writing too. His favourite track is the White Album’s ‘I’m So Tired’, a song written by Lennon about insomnia and his 1968 trip to India. “Lyrically, I like the way he calls Sir Walter Raleigh such a stupid get,” Jarvis revealed, “and the way he manages to get that mundanity into something quite intense.”
Turning the mundane into the intense and exciting is something that Jarvis has achieved numerous times throughout his discography. Continuing in his love for the track, he explained the inspirational quality of ‘I’m So Tired’, he said: “It made me realise that you could actually write songs like that. He’s just listing things that have pissed him off, and he can’t sleep, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself ’cause he’s fallen in love. Getting all the little detail into it was an inspiration for me.”
The inspiration quality of The Beatles’ track for Jarvis extended past the lyricism into the chord progressions. “When I bought my Beatles’ Complete Guitar Book, I got discouraged ’cause they always seemed to have all these sustained 9ths, and I couldn’t play them,” said Cocker, “Then I realised ‘I’m So Tired’ is quite simple, and I managed to master that one.”
The Beatles had an extensive influence on the Britpop era of the 1990s, with Oasis particularly fond of the Merseybeat combo, but it was Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker who perhaps had the deepest appreciation for Lennon, in particular. Without the influence of ‘I’m So Tired’, it is possible that some of Pulp’s most beloved tracks would have never come to fruition.
