Mother, Brother, Lover: Selected Lyrics
Jarvis Cocker
Mother, Brother, Lover: Selected Lyrics
Jarvis Cocker is believed by some to be one of the most original and memorable lyricists and performers of the last three decades. Here, for the first time, is a selection of sixty-six lyrics, presented with commentary and an introduction by the man himself. In this volume, readers (and Pulp fans) will find such classic Jarvis lyrics as 'Common People', 'Disco 2000', 'Babies', 'This is Hardcore' and 'Do You Remember the First Time?' The selection, assembled by the author, reveals a sensibility that is unmistakeably Jarvis: a sometimes visceral, sometimes everyday take on love, relationships and the things we do to each other when the lights get low.
3.2 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Music, Stage & Screen |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
184 |
| RRP |
£14.99 |
| Date of Publication |
October 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-0571281909 |
| Publisher |
Faber & Faber |
| |
Jarvis Cocker is believed by some to be one of the most original and memorable lyricists and performers of the last three decades. Here, for the first time, is a selection of sixty-six lyrics, presented with commentary and an introduction by the man himself. In this volume, readers (and Pulp fans) will find such classic Jarvis lyrics as 'Common People', 'Disco 2000', 'Babies', 'This is Hardcore' and 'Do You Remember the First Time?' The selection, assembled by the author, reveals a sensibility that is unmistakeably Jarvis: a sometimes visceral, sometimes everyday take on love, relationships and the things we do to each other when the lights get low.
Reviews
The Observer
Sarfraz Manzoor
"The songs I knew intimately were impossible to read without hearing the song in my head; the less well-known, oddly, were more rewarding to read as they could be experienced only as literary works. It seems unlikely, however, that anyone who was not an admirer of Jarvis Cocker will be persuaded by this collection."
13/11/2011
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The Sunday Telegraph
Sukhdev Sandhu
"Jarvis Cocker is one of the sharpest songwriters this country has ever produced. That doesn’t stop Mother, Brother, Lover, a selection of his lyrics, from being an inherently flawed project. He admits as much in the introduction: “Seeing a lyric in print is like watching the TV with the sound turned down.” ... What this collection does — necessarily and triumphantly — is to rescue Cocker from the condescension of popularity."
07/11/2011
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The Times
Will Hodgkinson
"Mother, Brother, Lover is most readable when Cocker isn’t making judgments but is simply observing. Anyone who went to an illegal rave in a field will be familiar with the scenario he conjures up in Sorted For E’s & Wizz, from buying tickets from “a f***ed-up guy in Camden Town” to being left with the sneaking feeling that you may have left part of your brain in a field in Hampshire ... Fittingly for someone with such a talent for writing about life’s details, Cocker comes off worst when he tackles abstract, wider issues. As a statement of political protest, C**ts Are Still Running The World is hardly likely to stop the planet shifting on an axis of money and power."
22/10/2011
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The New Statesman
Jude Rogers
"His lyrics are not typeset grandly here — after all, he writes, pushing the point, "they are not poetry: they are words to a song". Nevertheless, some of his more percussive verses and rhymes assault the eye awkwardly. These lyrics often work better when they form a narrative in prose. "David's Last Summer" (1993) is lovely — like an Alan Hollinghurst story set up north ("As we came out of the water/We both sensed a certain movement in the air . . ./As we walked home/We could hear the leaves curling and turning brown on the trees".) And the middle-eight from 1995's "I Spy" is pure Pennines Philip Roth ("I've been sleeping with your wife for the past 16 weeks,/smoking your cigarettes,/drinking your brandy,/messing up the bed you chose together")."
24/10/2011
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