Mother, brother, lover

Jarvis Cocker on Writing and Publishing his Lyrics from FaberBooks on Vimeo.

Faber&Faber’s excellent The Thought Fox blog carries an interview with Jarvis Cocker on how to write lyrics. The key, it seems, is to record the mundane, especially if it happens in Sheffield; although I suspect you need more than a pair of horn rimmed glasses and a bad dress sense to pull it off.

Cocker also draws an interesting distinction between reading lyrics and hearing them. The sleeves on Pulp records carry a warning that the lyrics are not to be read separately from the song because the rhythm of the music is integral to the words. “They are part of song,” says Cocker. In which case, you’ll have to buy Cocker’s songbook if you want his forthcoming book of lyrics. What a ruse.

Mock cynicism aside, Cocker and Faber have produced something to fill a stocking.