Jarvis Cocker Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 go to art more as something that's going to give me some clue as to how to live your life, or an angle on life that's going to interest me. Human beings haven't changed that much over the centuries, so I'm not really bothered what period it comes from. ~ Penguin Classics

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

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

[Jeffrey Lewis is] The best lyricist working in the US today. ~ 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love your body 'cause I've lost my mind
If you want someone to talk to, you're wasting your time
If you want someone to share your life, you need someone who's alive
And if every relationship is a two-way street, I have been screwing in the back whilst you drive

I never said I was deep, but I am profoundly shallow
My lack of knowledge is vast, and my horizons are narrow
I never said I was big, I never said that I was clever
And if you're waiting to find what's going on in my mind, you could be waiting forever
Forever and ever

I can dance you to the end of the night 'cause I'm afraid of the dark
I have to confess: I'm out of my depth
You're going over my head and straight through my heart

Some girls like to play it dirty, some girls want to be your mum
Me, I disrespected you whilst we were waiting for the taxi to come
My morality is shabby, my behaviour unacceptable
No, I'm not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle

I never said I was...
I never said I was...
I never said I was...
I never said I was deep, but I am profoundly shallow
My lack of knowledge is vast, and my horizons are narrow
Oh, yeah. I never said I was big, I never said that I was clever
And if you're waiting to find what's going on in my mind, you could be waiting forever
Forever and ever ~ Jarvis Cocker

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps we need to separate youth from education. Education lasts forever. Youth is the time for exploration, maturation, socialization. ~ Jeff Jarvis

Dogs are intelligent beings; they are not human beings. The life of a dog - there's no equivalency with the life of a person, and if you are putting a dog in the line of danger to save human life, and they can do the job reasonably well, I mean, seriously, what about dignity and self-respect?I feel like going out to dinner, I think I will have my cocker spaniel host the show tonight. ~ Tucker Carlson

I'm no crazier than anyone else. I love life the same as most people - what else have we got that's real? I like to take a good picture; I like to wake up in love; I like to read a good book; I like to travel without many plans; I like a shifting mix of the expected and the unexpected; I like to swim in rivers and oceans; I like to walk; I like to see sunlight coming through trees; I like old cites and snow and live music and all the kooky things I've been doing these last few days. All of it, the good and the bad and the stuff in between. I'm not saying I haven't made mistakes. I'm not saying I haven't been rude or cavalier or predictable. I'm only saying that if you asked me, I'd say, Yeah, I'm too young to die. ~ Michael Jarvis

I'd like to see every news organization, large and small, newspaper and blog, sponsor FOIA clubs in their communities to get scores, hundreds, thousands of citizens helping to open up data. ~ Jeff Jarvis

Overcoming fear and conceiving this 'art of more' should be a fundamental practice in what it is that you do and make. ~ Chase Jarvis

Why is it that people who are absorbed by something are seen as sad? I can't explain it, but for me it reverses the true state of affairs. To be engaged is to be a part, to be absorbed and fulfilled. To be cool, to be detached from things and to have no passionate feelings is the real sadness. At the heart of depression, that quintessentially modern malaise, is a deep sense of separation from the rest of life. ~ Mark Cocker

[on Howard's new moustache] looks like a nest of spiders. With very short legs. ~ Jarvis (Agent Carter)

I used to get so carried away while I was on stage that I'd be physically damaged by the end of a concert. ~ Joe Cocker

I'm no good at breakin' off with people. ~ Joe Cocker

Serving targeted masses of niches - as Google does - is the future. ~ Jeff Jarvis

People have said I played some pretty amazing gigs in the seventies, but in all honesty, I probably played one good show in three. ~ Joe Cocker

You are both daring and unscrupulous, and you think fast. I have been looking for a person with those particular characteristics. Also I noticed you speak Babylonian. ~ Eloise Jarvis McGraw

You don't start communities, he said. Communities already exist. They're already doing what they want to do. The question you should ask is how you can help them do that better. ~ Jeff Jarvis

Keep trying, especially at first. It can be very discouraging if your submissions keep being rejected by a publisher, but if your work is what people want to read, you should get there eventually! ~ Robin Jarvis

Rock and roll came into my life when I was about 12, 13, when Little Richard and Chuck Berry had just started hitting the shores of England. ~ Joe Cocker

I'm an action player. I like to be aggressive. I don't like to be on the run. I like to feel like I have the fates in my hands and that through my skill or lack thereof I control my fate. ~ Eugene Jarvis

I had accepted beatings, loneliness, and near-starvation as normal because those things had helped me to survive. Now when these women undressed me, it felt like they were removing a shield that had become a part of me. As they peeled off layer after layer, I began to feel my age and started crying. With my tears I shed each fiber of responsibility I had in caring for my sisters and brother. I was finally being cared for as a child, and so the child inside me opened wide. ~ Jarvis Jay Masters

In the end, I don't think you can find soul. Soul finds you. ~ Joe Cocker

I used to feel I could hide inside my practice, that I could simply sit and contemplate the raging anger of a place like this, seeking inner peace through prayers of compassion. But now I believe love and compassion are things to extend to others. It's a dangerous adventure to share them in a place like S.Q. Yet I see now that we become better people if we can touch a hardened soul, bring joy into someone's life, or just be an example for others, instead of hiding behind our silence. ~ Jarvis Jay Masters

I'm getting older; you realise you are on the countdown of what you are doing, so performing means more than it ever did to me. ~ Joe Cocker

For tech, I like the 'DailySearchCast', 'TWiT' and anything Veronica Belmont does on CNET. I think Perez Hilton is a riot, and the rest of my consumption is by people: Folks like Dave Winer, Fred Wilson, Mark Cuban, Brian Alvey, Jeff Jarvis, Xeni Jardin, etc. ~ Jason Calacanis

The school-room sends men to the Legislature, to the bench, and the executive office. The bar-room sends them to the scaffold and hell. ~ Thomas Jordan Jarvis

The gear you can't afford is not the barrier keeping you from success. Gear has very little to do with photography. ~ Chase Jarvis

The time had finally come when she would have to accept the full power of the Starwife. No longer could she be just Ysabelle. Now she had a land to govern and all the daunting responsibilities that that entailed. The liberty she had experienced since the night she had escaped from the Ring of Banbha seemed to vanish. She was left stripped of her freedom, and only long years of a lonely reign stretched out before her. ~ Robin Jarvis

Are we far from the conclusion of this Project? The Prince had asked after dinner. We ~ Andy Jarvis

You're everything I hope for. You're everything I need. You are so beautiful to me. ~ Joe Cocker

There are in fact no masses," said sociologist Raymond Williams, "there are only ways of seeing people as masses."11 ~ Jeff Jarvis

TV on the internet can now be freed from the need to fill a clock. It can expand past video. ~ Jeff Jarvis

I think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument. ~ Joe Cocker

Out of the brown mouth into a slanted easterly rain they head south along the shore, pushed toward it on a light chop, all but the pilot huddling under plastic sheeting that covers lumber, nails, window casings and plantains - the women sharing a seat, Reese behind them and the boatman behind him in a narrow-running balance. The land retreats as the dory crosses a wide bight toward the next point, rising and dropping on larger waves while a seaside village of thatch and palm passes thin and blurry in the drizzled distance. Two miles later another village appears, much the same but longer along the curve and then, past the point, the coast is tangled in mangrove, grass and sea grape. The passengers peer out of the plastic at a rain-erased horizon as the dory slices and slows in equal measure and the boatman bails with a cut jug the rolling puddle at his feet. ~ Michael Jarvis

I have sung to large crowds since then, and there is a feeling that once you get over 100,000 people, you kind of lose the control element, you don't know if you are really getting through or not. ~ Joe Cocker

I'm a demon...I'll curse a mermaid. I'll curse a cocker spaniel. I don't care about anything. ~ Cassandra Clare

For me, the focus are songs, which really get the audience moving. ~ Joe Cocker

Raise thy head, Handmaiden of Orion, thou has borne thyself well thus far. ~ Robin Jarvis

Every time I told my cocker spaniel, Taffy, my very first dog, that we were going for a walk, she would launch into a celebratory dance that ended with her racing around the room, always clockwise, and faster and faster, as if her joy could not be possibly contained. Even as a young boy I knew that hardly any creature could express joy so vividly as a dog. ~ Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

You want loyalty, hire a cocker spaniel. ~ Michael Lewis

Where some see a new world disorder, others see the opportunity to bring organization. ~ Jeff Jarvis

There is no evil in the darkness, it's just an absence of light. ~ Robin Jarvis

The great times are when you put a game on location and see others play it for the first time. After all, we are really kind of an entertainer. You perform for the joy of the audience. ~ Eugene Jarvis