The unusual Ronald Binge song that Jarvis Cocker couldn’t live without
Jarvis Cocker has battled with insomnia throughout his life, but there’s one piece of music that has been a godsend to the Pulp frontman. It has helped him get to sleep on countless occasions, and for that, he’ll be forever grateful to its creator, Ronald Binge.
Almost definitely, Binge is a name you’re unfamiliar with, but you might be aware of his most famous work, ‘Sailing By’. Binge started as a cinema organist before serving in the Royal Air Force, during which he was in charge of in-camp entertainment. When he returned from World War II, Binge worked alongside Mantovani and orchestrated musicals before becoming a composer.
His composition ‘Elizabethan Serenade’ was first played by the Mantovani orchestra in 1951 and won Binge an Ivor Novello award. In 1963, Binge was commissioned by the BBC to create a theme for their Shipping Forecast programme on Radio 4.
Cocker is a frequent listener to the programme, but not because he has an interest in the life of fishermen. Instead, the Pulp frontman finds himself tuning into the broadcast because he finds it soothing enough to make an insomniac fall asleep.
During an appearance on the Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs in 2005, Cocker named eight tracks he’d take with him if he was stranded on a desert island, including ‘Sailing By’. At the end of the episode, he was asked to select a ‘Castaway’s Favourite’ out of the songs and chose Binge’s relaxing creation.
Before naming the track, Cocker spoke about his fear of being left alone on a desert island with nothing but his thoughts which he admitted would be “very boring”. The singer believed ‘Sailing By’ would be a useful tool “to help me with that” because it would make him drift off to sleep.
Cocker explained: “It’s got a lot of connotations, really. It’s ‘Sailing By’ (Ronald Binge), which is the music that gets played in the Shipping Forecast. For many years, I’ve used this as an aid for restful sleep. I find something very comforting about listening to it when laid in bed”.
Adding: “Also, on a desert island, it would make you happy because it would remind you there are boats out there listening to the Shipping Forecast, and some of them might sail nearby so you could get rescued. This would help me, this would be something that could help me deal with that isolation, I think.”
When Cocker was tasked with making his own show in 2014 for Radio 4, Wireless Nights, he wanted to recreate the spirit of the Shipping Forecast. He told The Guardian: “It’s deliberately low-key as I’d regard it as quite a success if people were to nod off during the broadcast.”
Listen below to the one track that Cocker couldn’t live without.
