Jarvis Cocker on his favourite songs and member of The Beatles
I’m sure I won’t shock you when I say The Beatles hugely impacted the 1990s Britpop boom. The Gallagher brothers and their quintessential Britpop clan, Oasis, barely took a breath without naming one of the Fab Four and modelled their anthemic sound and image on the Liverpool group. The Beatles’ impact on the Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker was no different, yet perhaps a little less overt.
Born in Sheffield in 1963, Cocker grew up to the beat of British Invasion-era music. Spearheaded by The Beatles, the era triggered a surge of musical inspiration in the northern counties of England. The four cheeky chappies gave fellow British youngsters from modest backgrounds license to follow a dream in pop music.
This domino effect not only carried through The Beatles’ tenure of the 1960s but can still be felt in rock music up to the modern day. As with most other musicians of his generation, Cocker was influenced by The Beatles as a cultural presence. So, while his songwriting style might not directly descend from that of the Lennon-McCartney partnership, Cocker is undoubtedly indebted.
During an interview with Stereogum last year, the Pulp frontman was challenged to pick out his favourite Paul McCartney composition for the former Beatle’s 80th birthday. For Cocker, it would naturally have to come from The Beatles’ oeuvre since the band’s cultural presence had such a lasting impact throughout his childhood.
“It’s difficult to pick out a single song by Paul McCartney because, as a member of the Beatles, he was responsible for a general atmosphere of benevolence that I benefitted from as a child,” Cocker pondered.
Continuing, Cocker illustrated how The Beatles’ music punctuated his early years. “‘She Loves You’ was number one the week I was born, and they split up the year my dad left home (in my seven-year-old mind it was the very same day but I’m sure it wasn’t really). Between those two dates it was the Golden Age — thank you Paul. The song that most vividly brings back that Golden Age is ‘Martha My Dear’ from the [eponymous] White Album. There isn’t a specific memory attached to it — it’s something to do with the sound of that song. The piano and McCartney’s voice blend together to create an acoustic effect that I can only describe as ‘sunlight shining through French windows in a wood-lined room’ and, for as long as the song is playing, I am in that room and everything is right with the world. That’s the McCartney Magic.”
Despite these flattering words for McCartney’s magical songwriting aptitude, it was Lennon’s lyrical intensity and bespectacled brazenness that he could really identify with. “John was my favourite Beatle,” Cocker told Uncut in 2015. “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.”
Cocker continued to name one of his favourite Lennon compositions, returning to the 1968 eponymous album. “‘I’m So Tired’, I’ll have that,” he added, picking out a favourite among Lennon’s creations. “Lyrically, I like the way he calls Sir Walter Raleigh such a stupid get and the way he manages to get that mundanity into something quite intense. 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. Also, that’s one of the ones with the easiest chords. 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. Then I realised ‘I’m So Tired’ is quite simple, and I managed to master that one.”
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