John Cooper Clarke awarded Freedom of Salford
The punk poet icon John Cooper Clarke has been awarded the freedom of the city of Salford, although he’s not entirely sure what such recognition might entitle him to, despite being happy with the award.
Clark admitted that he’s “totally knocked out” by receiving such an honour from local councillors, telling them, “I’ve circumnavigated the globe ten times and coming back is always a treat, but this one. Wow. Thank you, everyone.”
He added: “With me, it was never a social experiment, it was just a way of making a living, and the social consequences went out of my control.” On the freedom, Clarke said he “doesn’t know what it entitles me to do”.
In other Clarke news, he’d recently responded to the Arctic Monkeys’ adaptation of his poem ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ getting its one billionth stream.
Clarke told The Guardian: “Is that a lot? An American billion is different to a British billion – and I don’t know what either of them is. But it’s a fuck of a lot of listens. I believe everyone’s written a poem at some point. It’s the easiest, most accessible – a pen and a piece of paper, and off you go.”
He added: “You don’t even have to be literate – you could record something. But it’s perceived as a minority of a minority who are interested in poetry. I don’t know why it’s got that reputation. Songs aren’t that far from poetry – as Alex [Turner] has pointed out.”
Listen to the poem below.
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