Across six episodes, icons in music and screen join Double J host Zan Rowe to delve deep into intimate moments in their lives as they share five songs they love.<\/p>\n
Best known as the besuited singer out front of Pulp \u2014 arguably Britpop’s canniest, coolest band<\/a> \u2014 Cocker has never been comfortable with romantic tropes.<\/p>\n “It just seemed corny somehow \u2026 You’d seen it so many times in films or heard it in songs that it seemed like a clich\u00e9.”<\/p>\n Instead, Cocker’s sharp-witted songwriting has long poked holes in traditional ideas of romance, subverting them with insights on lust and infatuation.<\/p>\n “Love is also quite a dangerous state to be in because it can drive you mad.”<\/p>\n Pulp’s breakout single Babies features a teenage Cocker hiding in a closet to spy on his friend’s older sister having sex, while flirtation underpins the class politics on era-defining anthem Common People.<\/p>\n He seems confounded, rather than bedazzled, by his sensations on the tense F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. and adopts a cynical approach to desire on This Is Hardcore.<\/p>\n ‘Not a straightforward love song’<\/p>\n Cocker’s Take 5 song choices revolved around love’s less-than-idyllic manifestations: the “needy” desperation of Please Stay by ’60s beat group The Cryin’ Shames; the “slightly unhinged” Dance This Mess Around by The B-52’s.<\/p>\n One-time Pulp producer Scott Walker captures the “feeling after a love affair is over” on It’s Raining Today, while Bob Dylan’s Isis deals with the complications of matrimony.<\/p>\n “That’s the thing, getting married isn’t the end of a love story, it changes it into a different kind of love story \u2026,” he says.<\/p>\n Jarvis Cocker’s Take 5 songs:The Cryin’ Shames \u2013 Please Stay, 1966The B-52’s \u2013 Dance This Mess Around, 1978Dame Judi Dench \u2013 Send In The Clowns, 1995Bob Dylan \u2013 Isis, 1976Scott Walker \u2013 It’s Raining Today, 1969<\/p>\n “[A story] of how you both keep your lives but then make your life together build into something else.”<\/p>\n Cocker was 39 when he wed stylist Camille Bidault-Waddington but divorced “on amicable terms” after six years.<\/p>\n “I had a feeling that was it. Maybe you can only fall in love properly once in your life.”<\/p>\n He proved himself wrong when, as the best man at somebody else’s wedding, he met creative consultant Kim Sion.<\/p>\n “She led me to this bit in the forest. And there was a patch of moss: ‘Take your shoes and socks off and put your feet in that moss’. That was a nice feeling.<\/p>\n “We just sat in this tree and spoke, and it happened \u2026 I fell in love with her at that moment.”<\/p>\n Cocker and Sion began dating in 2009, split up temporarily, reunited and, last year, got married.<\/p>\n A wild wedding story<\/p>\n So, what does the romantic cynic do for his second round at the altar? A circus-themed ceremony.<\/p>\n Jarvis Cocker proposed to his partner of 15 years, Kim Sion, while stuck in a traffic jam.\u00a0 (Alamy: WENN)<\/p>\n As de facto ringmaster, Cocker entertained the congregation about meeting his wife, to the strains of Dame Jude Dench performing Send In The Clowns \u2014 the standout from 1974 Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music.<\/p>\n On cue with the lyric “Me here at last on the ground\/You in mid-air”, Sion was carried into the circus ring “by bodybuilders”, notes Cocker.<\/p>\n Send In The Clowns then needle-dropped into The Boys Town Gang’s rendition of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.<\/p>\n “It was one of those moments where you hope that everyone will come and start dancing with you. And they just did.”<\/p>\n The circus ring was filled with revellers, “and it was perfect. I still can’t quite believe it happened.”<\/p>\n “The circus has not stopped since.”<\/p>\n “Music is magic. It’s almost spelt the same.” Cocker has long believed in the transformative power of his craft. (ABC TV: Femi Johnson)<\/p>\n From the dole to Britain’s biggest festival<\/p>\n Cocker was born and raised in 1960s working-class Sheffield. When he was seven, his father, Mac Cocker, left his family and moved to Sydney (where he was a DJ on Double Jay, which later became national youth broadcaster triple j).<\/p>\n “It was me, my sister and my mum after that,” recalls Cocker, who reasons he “probably” got his musical abilities from his absent father.<\/p>\n “I never saw him perform or anything. He used to sing, play the trombone a bit.”<\/p>\n At 15, long before Pulp was a reality, Cocker wrote a band manifesto, “really to get it clear in my mind what I wanted to do”, he explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Down to what clothes we should wear.”<\/p>\n Two handwritten pages from the teenage Jarvis Cocker’s “Master Plan”. (Supplied: Jarvis Cocker)<\/p>\n He was inspired by the phenomenal success of Liverpool’s The Beatles (“a massive encouragement to everyone from a normal-ish background”), combined with the emerging punk movement of the late ’70s.<\/p>\n “Because then musical ability wasn’t a big thing anymore. You don’t have to be a virtuoso to be in a band, you’ve just got to have something to say. And say it loud.”<\/p>\n In his 20s, Cocker lived on unemployment benefits in London as he struggled to make his manifesto a reality.<\/p>\n 30 years since Different Class: Pulp’s big pop moment<\/a><\/p>\n In 1995, Jarvis Cocker showed he was in a class of his own.<\/p>\n After a string of unsuccessful albums and various line-ups through the 1980s, he settled the classic Pulp roster: keyboardist Candida Doyle, guitarist-violinist Russell Senior, drummer Nick Banks and late bassist Steve Mackey<\/a>.<\/p>\n Together, they followed up 1994’s breakthrough album His ‘n’ Hers with 1995’s Different Class.<\/p>\n Released at Britpop’s cultural peak<\/a>, the chart-topping album earned rave reviews and spawned four UK top 10 singles: Disco 2000, Sorted for E’s & Wizz, Something Changed, and, of course, Common People.<\/p>\n Pulp’s first performance after Common People became a hit was at Glastonbury festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I’ve never been as nervous and hope I’m never as nervous again. I was petrified.”<\/p>\n “I was holding on to a chair for a long time thinking that if I stood up, I might fall over and break my leg!” Jarvis Cocker was nervous backstage before Pulp’s 1995 Glastonbury performance. (Redferns: Mick Hutson)<\/p>\n Pulp’s headlining, last-minute set (replacing The Stone Roses) became a memorable, career-making milestone.<\/p>\n “We were suddenly famous, something I’d wanted to happen for a long time,” says Cocker, who was in his mid-30s at the time.<\/p>\n He’d long held “very, very unrealistic expectations” that fame would be the “magic wand that’s going to sort everything out.<\/p>\n “\u2026 And of course it wasn’t. In fact, it kind of erased my previous life. I couldn’t do the things I’d been doing up to that point. It kind of freaked me out a bit.”Getting better with age<\/p>\n It took many years, but Cocker acclimatised to fame.<\/p>\n After Pulp split in 2002, he didn’t slink out of the spotlight but embraced other opportunities. He released several solo albums; toured with his backing band Jarv Is and hosted the popular BBC radio show Sunday Service for almost a decade.<\/p>\n In 2022, he penned a memoir titled Good Pop, Bad Pop and got Pulp back together.<\/p>\n This year, the group released their first album in 24 years, More, and played Glastonbury, 30 years after their watershed debut.<\/p>\n “I didn’t want to spoil that memory,” reflects Cocker. But playing to 90,000 adoring fans made for another landmark.<\/p>\n “Not such a thing as a perfect show, but to me it almost felt like a perfect show.” Anyone for tea? Jarvis Cocker serves the crowd at Pulp’s Glastonbury 2025 performance. (Reuters: Jaimi Joy)<\/p>\n A unique, worthy addition to Pulp’s discography<\/a>, More spotlights Cocker’s frequently cheeky yet perceptive lyricism on songs about life, death and supermarkets (to quote Pulp’s 2014 concert movie).<\/p>\n “It did take a long time. I hope that it doesn’t take 24 years again.”<\/p>\n Songs like Grown Ups and Euro-disco stomper Got To Have Love exhibit self-awareness regarding age, legacy and the frontman’s shifting attitudes to relationships.<\/p>\n “It did take a long time. I hope that it doesn’t take 24 years again.” Jarvis Cocker with bandmates Nick Banks, Mark Webber and Candida Doyle (left to right). (Supplied: Tom Jackson)<\/p>\n Background Noise tenderly toes the line between sentimental and satirical, with Cocker crooning over plangent strings:<\/p>\n “Love turns into background noise, like this ringing in my ears \/ Like the buzzing of a fridge, you only notice it when it disappears.”<\/p>\n He’s even started adopting “I love you” into his personal life.<\/p>\n “I am trying to say it, not all the time. I’m not walking up to people on the street \u2014 I haven’t gone quite that far,” he jokes.<\/p>\n “I suppose that’s what a lot of the songs on the record [are] about, trying to trust your feelings rather than your thoughts. All the stuff between the heart and the head, and how you balance those two.”<\/p>\n Stream all episodes of Take 5 with Zan Rowe free on ABC iview<\/a>. Hear extended Take 5 podcast episodes on the ABC listen app<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love has “always been problematic” for Jarvis Cocker.\u00a0 “Using the word in my own songs [and] in real…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,23322,134,122805,122808,122807,122809,122806,122810,122811,122812,115589,90569,115590],"class_list":["post-194781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-djfrontpage","tag-entertainment","tag-jarvis-cocker","tag-jarvis-cocker-wife","tag-pulp-glastonbury","tag-pulp-glastonbury-1995","tag-pulp-jarvis-cocker","tag-pulp-more","tag-pulp-new-album","tag-pulp-reunion","tag-take-5","tag-take-5-with-zan-rowe","tag-zan-rowe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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