Many Happy Returns Jarvis Cocker!

Not that he’d ever welcome such a romanticised and gushing title as ‘national treasure’, it is true that Jarvis Cocker is one of the country’s most cherished malcontents and arguably one of our greatest living lyricists – even if his musical career is now shelved for that of a Radio presenters. Hitting the half-century (bow and dip bat to the gas work end in reaching it) mark for a man, who always carried a mature head on those narrow, wily, shoulders, shouldn’t come as no surprise. Though it would be with Pulp in the 90s that Cocker emerged from relative obscurity, he was closer to the generation that spawned Mark E. Smith, than his Britpop rivals; his recording career beginning some thirty years ago.

In celebration, nee honour, I’ve put together a little playlist of the Alan Bennett, Nick Cave, Van Dyke Parks, Jacques Brel and of course Scott Walker, all rolled into one world weary, Sheffield proletarian poet’s oeuvre: enjoy.

http://open.spotify.com/user/dominicvalvona/playlist/78HtXzLdbruCahgV3wY9Kj