Jarvis Cocker Quotes & Sayings

Part of why I started a band was due to feelings of shyness and social ineptitude. I saw it as some way of being able to interact with people from a safe distance. — Jarvis Cocker

I am passionate about keeping the human dimension in things. You have to keep the rough edges and the inconsistencies, that's what makes it interesting. I've always striven to be as sloppy as possible. — Jarvis Cocker

It's funny how you can intensely investigate one very particular thing, and then it can lead you to other things through links and stuff like that. It's like you're going on this selective, very precise detour. But then it is strange because with it being so quick, there must be a difference. — Jarvis Cocker

I travel backwards and forwards quite a lot. I live very near to the train station. I'm kind of playing at being an expatriate, I suppose. — Jarvis Cocker

The thing with Disney songs is they're very manipulative, very sentimental, but they do get you, you know - there's a kind of sadness to them and that kind of music doesn't really exist any more. — Jarvis Cocker

There seems to be a contradiction in the fact that there's more music around and more channels or downloading music or more channels on TV, and yet at the same time, in some ways it doesn't seem to be as vital as it once was. It seems to be just another entertainment option or lifestyle enhancement aid or something. — Jarvis Cocker

You get to a certain age and you just want to prove that you can still rock - that you've still got it. — Jarvis Cocker

You write a song about how you think at the time, and then gradually you drift away from that, and when it's far enough in the past, that's when you think, 'Now I have to write something new.' — Jarvis Cocker

The good thing about people really is their iffy-ness and dodginess, isn't it? — Jarvis Cocker

You don't often hear people say, 'Oh, since he's been taking them drugs, he's such a nice person! He's really come out of his shell, he's really nice, he's blossomed'. — Jarvis Cocker

I always feel like there are specific things about Houston. There's one museum in particular in Houston. So many of the things that I'm interested in now I can sort of trace back to that museum, which introduced me to them. — Jarvis Cocker

I like bossy girls. I don't like girls who just do whatever they think you want them to do, and follow you around trying to please you all the time. — Jarvis Cocker

If you're in a band or think of yourself as a slightly creative person, you can get quite self-indulgent, so sometimes it's nice to have those people who bring you down to earth, but in a pleasant way. — Jarvis Cocker

My route so far through life hasn't been particularly logical, or even thought out. — Jarvis Cocker

I think the credit crunch is a brilliant thing. We should all stop moaning and start celebrating. When times are tough, it's an opportunity to start looking at life in a different way. — Jarvis Cocker

I speak onstage to try to establish some method of communication. The songs are supposed to be a way of communicating. But speech and drinks and sometimes chocolates are also a way of communicating. — Jarvis Cocker

I'm not a religious person but I do like the idea of Sunday as a day set apart from the rest of the week. It's nice to have a period of reflection and have time to think about things. — Jarvis Cocker

It's weird: The leader of the Conservative Party in England is two years younger than me, and I still don't really feel like a responsible adult. — Jarvis Cocker

I know that some filmmakers strive for a kind of naturalistic approach, but you're never going to capture something that's really natural - just the simple fact that you choose to put a frame around something means that you've already chosen one particular thing to put more attention on. — Jarvis Cocker

I'm sure Sting's a lovely guy. It's just that nobody wants to be seen as that holier-than-thou thing. That over-earnestness is a bit of a problem with people in bands and celebrities or whatever. — Jarvis Cocker

You know when you get into that thing where people want to discuss the relationship? I'd rather discuss what was on telly, avoid the issue, discuss anything other than the relationship. — Jarvis Cocker

Culture shouldn't be a pacifying thing. It shouldn't be something that you just passively accept. I think it should be something that, in some ways, is quite disruptive - makes you think and question things, and actually sparks debate. — Jarvis Cocker

I'm always amazed by people who blog all the time and tweet all the time, and still get things done. I don't know how they do it. — Jarvis Cocker

[Jeffrey Lewis is] The best lyricist working in the US today. — Jarvis Cocker

I appreciate people who try and use language in an interesting way. — Jarvis Cocker

I do write songs with a political dimension to them sometimes, but I'm always slightly appalled by it when I do. — Jarvis Cocker

When I was in Pulp, I actively did more TV stuff because that was during the Great Britpop Wars, and it seemed important to prove that indie people could speak. That war doesn't exist anymore. — Jarvis Cocker

I've stuck to the same things for twenty years. I try to look like a slightly edgy geography teacher. Like what a geography teacher looked like when I was in school. Cords, sensible shoes and glasses. I never liked geography much as a subject though. In fact the only geography teacher I can remember from school was a woman who had a moustache. — Jarvis Cocker

The things in my songs are the edited highlights of my life. I don't go seeking out strange sexual experiences every day of the week. — Jarvis Cocker

We've always been a bit out of touch with reality. — Jarvis Cocker

Well, once you've resigned yourself to the fact that you are the more mature pop performer and you're past the age you ever thought you would do it, you might as well do it as long as you can. As long as I can still lift a microphone, then I'll do it, you know. — Jarvis Cocker

Pornography takes all the reality out of sex and Disney does that to family life. — Jarvis Cocker

I do want to have that feeling that people are actively involved in something, rather than just consuming something. I suppose that's what it comes down to, because it's such a dominant capitalist society, everything becomes a consumer product. And I don't think that's really appropriate to the creative arts, really. — Jarvis Cocker

Pulp existed for 12 years before we got famous. Now, you could say that was just lack of imagination, but it's some kind of quality isn't it? Tenacity. You could also say it was sloth. — Jarvis Cocker

I am proud, and more than a little excited, to be asked to work with Faber in an editorial capacity. It is my dearest hope that we will produce some fantastic books together. — Jarvis Cocker

People who make good music aren't necessarily nice people. — Jarvis Cocker

Anyone who thinks they're sexy needs their head checked. — Jarvis Cocker

We live in an age where people are kind of a bit obsessed with celebrity and stuff. You can't help but be curious about it. — Jarvis Cocker

There's the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: He's supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs you've been recording and then say, 'Guys, I don't hear any singles.' And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one. — Jarvis Cocker

Unless you're living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, there's no point in being gloomy. We've spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we don't really need. We've stopped using our imaginations. — Jarvis Cocker

Words are important to me, but a song can work and function and be a good song with words that are fairly standard. But really great lyrics can't rescue a dog of a song. — Jarvis Cocker

My basic position is that the more mixed the society and the more mobility there is in it, the better. That's what makes things interesting. When you get a homogenous society, it's very, very dull, whether that's all working class or all upper class, because everybody thinks the same, everybody looks the same. — Jarvis Cocker

In no way am I supporting or suggesting that a Conservative government is a good thing, far from it. — Jarvis Cocker

I'd been thinking I'd have to learn how to play really well, but obviously the message of punk was that you just learn three chords in a week and you're away. — Jarvis Cocker

Noise is an easy thing to hide behind. If you make a lot of noise and shout behind that, nobody can tell what you're singing. — Jarvis Cocker

What people have to make sure of is that they're not replicating something that already exists. You really have to ask yourself: "Is there a point in me doing this? Has this already been said before? Is this moving things along or is this just adding to the giant pile of junk that's already there?" — Jarvis Cocker

Silver Machine still sounds really modern with all the white noise. It's a bit punky in a way. They were ahead of their time. — Jarvis Cocker

It's good that I managed to hoodwink so many people. I am actually not that nice a person. — Jarvis Cocker

I'd never really wanted to have a really 'private' life before. But when somebody starts delving into it and printing details through the tabloids for shagging people you shouldn't have shagged, then that probably made me shy away a bit more from giving too much away. — Jarvis Cocker

The main thing I don't like about myself is an absurd level of self-consciousness that makes any sort of social encounter an ordeal for me. — Jarvis Cocker

A Conservative government is necessary. There is no credible alternative. — Jarvis Cocker

If you get involved in music expecting to make a living out of it, then you've picked the wrong thing to do. That shouldn't really be in your mind. — Jarvis Cocker

I used to look at older people who bothered to still attend nightclubs and couldn't help but wonder why. Didn't they realize how foolish they looked? Of course, now that I'm one of those people myself, I have decided that such rules don't apply to me. — Jarvis Cocker

One of the problems of our modern world is that there's a lot of things to work through, but, at some point, everybody should take a pause from that and make something, so that it's not just all one-way traffic. — Jarvis Cocker

I'm always nervous when I perform anyway. — Jarvis Cocker

If you perform on a stage or you sing a song, it's like you sing your song, and then the words go into the air, and then they go into somebody's body through their ears, so it's kind of like penetrating somebody. It's kind of like having sex with somebody - but, obviously, from a great distance. — Jarvis Cocker

In a song you can kind of stage-manage everything so that it puts you in a good light. And once a song is recorded, it always performs well. — Jarvis Cocker

I would rather kill myself than play my own music ... I can't stand it when people do that. — Jarvis Cocker

I'm not very keen on ageing. I'm not keen on the physical decay. I probably am quite vain. I think you want to try and look OK for the benefit of other people. — Jarvis Cocker

You can do anything when you're famous. That's why famous people are so dumb. — Jarvis Cocker

Oh you know, I've been writing a novel. — Jarvis Cocker

The thing about radio is that it's got an intimate feel. What I like is that you don't have to give it your full attention - you can still do something else that the same time, whereas TV is all-enveloping: you have to sit there and pay attention to it, and give yourself over to it. You have to surrender to it, but you don't with radio. — Jarvis Cocker

Will you see Pulp again? Who knows. I'm not stoking those particular rumours. — Jarvis Cocker

For me, the great thing about music is that anybody can do it. — Jarvis Cocker

Also, because people like to multitask, in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it, then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise, but leave your brain free to do something else. — Jarvis Cocker

Hawkwind are one of those bands that people introduce you to because you don't see them on the covers of magazines. I'd heard 'Silver Machine' but Russell Senior, who was in Pulp, got me into them. They had a song called 'Master Of The Universe' and we nicked the title in 1985 for one of our songs. — Jarvis Cocker

Its OK to grow up, just as long as you don't grow old. Face it you are young. — Jarvis Cocker

The working class has been turned into a consuming class - a situation has been created where people value their worth by what they can afford. — Jarvis Cocker

Don't think that the things around you don't count, because they do. — Jarvis Cocker

Every woman I've had a relationship with has found this maddening; the fact that I will talk about anything on the stage, and reveal all this stuff, and yet when I'm at home, I clam up and won't discuss anything intimate or personal. — Jarvis Cocker

I always thought that I might retire from any form of sexuality by the age of 40 and just become a dignified older person. — Jarvis Cocker

Everybody's a bit screwed up, you know. You can take it as symptoms of a disorder, or you can take it as personality. Me, I'd rather think it as parts of personality. — Jarvis Cocker

I think life is more interesting when everybody's jumbled up together. When people separate out into cliques and things, it's okay, but it's a bit limiting. You can always learn things from other people. This is my theory. — Jarvis Cocker

Being chronically shy I needed to create a persona for myself and be involved with a band where I could be ruler of my own kingdom. Then Pulp became hugely popular and I lost control of it, which is when it all went wrong. — Jarvis Cocker

I got a pair of red, synthetic satin women's pants through the post the other day with a phone number on. That was quite strange. I haven't tried the phone number. In times of stress I may. — Jarvis Cocker

For TV you also get those pre-interviews when researchers ask you what you're going to say. The pre-interview drives me insane. If they've already decided the outcome, why don't I just hand in an essay? Maybe if we talk we'll find something out. I'd rather just have an awkward pause. — Jarvis Cocker

Tabloids invoke freedom of speech, but they're not interested in that, they're just interested in who's shagging whom, who's got drunk. And if you take that pretend, faux moral standpoint, you end up with people in public life being completely boring. Like they've had their genitals removed. — Jarvis Cocker

As a shy kid growing up in Sheffield, I fantasized about how it would be great to be famous so I wouldn't actually have to talk to people and feel awkward. And of course, as we all know from fairy stories, when you achieve that ambition, you find out you don't want it. — Jarvis Cocker

I guess I'm fairly insistent and maybe consistent. If I decide I'll do something, I generally will. — Jarvis Cocker

There isn't much I find interesting to write about in middle-class life. — Jarvis Cocker

I recently spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield, England, which is where I'm from. I wouldn't move back there, but it's funny when you spend a bit of time in the place where you were brought up. You kind of realize how that place has had quite a big effect on you or made you a certain way. — Jarvis Cocker

Money isn't important, but you have to have enough, so you don't have to think about it. Thinking about money is a drag. — Jarvis Cocker

There are some quite funny things about getting famous and stuff, but I think there comes a point where you have to think to yourself, "Well, am I doing this because I want to go to a party and meet Britney Spears? Or am I doing it because I want to create something that excites me?" — Jarvis Cocker

The most entertaining songs don't always come from a nice place. In songs where I think I'm being really sensitive, they seem quite boring actually. I've found that the songs that come out of nastier, more misanthropic places are better. — Jarvis Cocker

Human beings aren't meant to be solely consumers - eventually, something has to come out. Otherwise, I don't really see what the point of all that consumption is. The idea behind watching things and listening to things is that it stirs something within you, and hopefully that will stimulate you to then create your own thing. — Jarvis Cocker

I don't really care what someone's background is; creativity can come from any background. — Jarvis Cocker

I'd always fought against presenting radio really, because my father was a radio DJ in Australia. He's just recently retired. And I kind of didn't want to follow in his footsteps. But I suppose, as we all find as we become older, to some extent we do all become our parents. — Jarvis Cocker

I think basically becoming famous has taken the place of going to Heaven in modern society, hasn't it? That's the place where your dreams will come true. It's an act of faith now; they think that's going to sort things out. — Jarvis Cocker

I love the Beatles. I haven't named any kids after them but I still really love them. They were the first group that I was ever properly aware of. In my early teens I would sometimes stay in and listen to the radio all day in the hope that I would catch a song by them that I'd never heard before and be able to tape it on my radio-cassette player. — Jarvis Cocker

I've always had an eye for nature, but it's the sort of thing to keep quiet about, because I don't want to come across as a mad hippy. But it makes sense to appreciate those things. — Jarvis Cocker

The best thing you can give someone is the freedom to make their own mind up - and then, if it's not working out 5 years later, you can give your opinion. — Jarvis Cocker

I love the Internet, but it's hard not to get lost in it. It's not like a book where you start and get to the end. It's like we've found a way to encapsulate all of human knowledge within one thing only to learn that you can't do that. It's an overabundance of information. — Jarvis Cocker

In some ways, I always thought you're better off behaving like a rock star when you're a normal person. Because if you do it as a rock star, you'll end up in the papers and your life will be made a misery. — Jarvis Cocker

I believe that humans adapt to circumstance. The Internet is quite an unprecedented circumstance, so it's going to take people a while to get their heads around it. — Jarvis Cocker

And as I touch your shoulder tonight this room has become the centre of the entire universe. — Jarvis Cocker

If you wanted to be a creative person and you are confronted with the sum product of mankind's creativity up to this moment in history, Internet is pretty daunting, like, "Where can I fit my voice in amongst all that?" — Jarvis Cocker

But I've got ideas. I keep my little notebook, I've always got that with me. Hopefully there's more stuff than nonsense in there. — Jarvis Cocker

I would like to believe in an afterlife; it makes things more palatable. But I'm not banking on it. — Jarvis Cocker

I'm a sluggish character; I'm a bit slow. For some reason I find it hard to work quickly. — Jarvis Cocker