Kinder Scout: The picturesque piece of British landscape Jarvis Cocker will “never get bored of”
Jarvis Cocker can stake his claim for being the most British guy in the music business. At Pulp’s ‘secret’ set at Glastonbury in 2025, the man threw bags of tea into the crowd, for Christ’s sakes, and could almost be heard muttering, “Sod’s law with the bloody weather, ‘init?” through the microphone at Worthy Farm.
Another extremely British sensibility is the overwhelming urge to escape to the country when things start getting tough. After all, what’s better than a diligent farm walk through piles of dog shit, past rivers buzzing with flies, and pebbled paths that lead to a strict, ‘No trespassing!’ sign? Most probably, in the pissing rain.
However, the drizzle and the damp never seemed to faze the frontman, who sang defiantly in the song ‘Heavy Weather’ from his eponymous solo album, “I don’t mind the rain, so strike me once again, I’ve got nothing to lose, Yeah, it looks like we are in for stormy weather, with death and destruction coming through”.
All this considered, it isn’t surprising that Cocker seemed at home perched millimetres from the rain in the remote village of Edale when chatting with The Yorkshire Post back in 2019.
He told the publication all about his love affair with Kinder Scout, the peak which rises 2,090ft in the hills of Derbyshire. Beyond its incredible height, the site has been an important personal touchstone for Cocker for over four decades.
Ever the realist, the frontman revealed that he first visited the area with his school, recalling, “We came out on a school trip, which no one particularly wanted to go on. Everyone wanted to stay at home and watch TV instead of heading out on a minibus into the middle of nowhere. But I fell in love with the place.”
Away from the suffocating demands of the industry Cocker and I both share a foothold in, the unsuspecting Peak District mountain strips things back to basics for the star: “I found it fascinating to be up there with just a map and a compass to make sure that you didn’t end up getting lost completely. I still find Kinder Scout is somewhere I can come and never get bored of.”
In fact, the ‘Common People’ singer loved the mountain so much that he decided to collaborate with Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller to whip up an art trail that leads the general public all the way from the quaint station to the foot of the plateau of Kinder Scout. Notably, along the trail, Cocker’s team constructed the Cinebarn, a converted out-house showing clips selected by everybody’s favourite Briton in a loop.
Cocker’s obsession with the place suggests he discovered many of the ideas for Pulp’s newest record up there near the zenith of the clouds. It’s a record containing the ubiquitous themes of journeying, ending, and ageing that crop up on More, rain-splattered with a dreary, yet diligent kind of destitution.
“One last sunset, one final blaze of glory,” he sings in the closing verse to the nostalgic-fused rock-bop ‘Grown Ups’, before adding, “And I know it’s all about the journey, not the final destination. But what if you get travel sick before you’ve even left the station?” Not with an art trail you won’t, dear Cocker.
