Jarv Is – Locked Down Review

Another unreleased track forever destined to the scrap heap Locked Down featured in just a few Jarv Is live performances. What a song it was set to be. But the reformation of Pulp, much as that has been a universally welcome appearance, leaves a few of these Jarvis Cocker-penned pieces in the dust. Farewell, Proceed to the Route, in comes Background Noise. Cocker sounds as though he is figuring out where his sound is set to head next, and while Locked Down may now be a distant memory, it remains a song well-positioned to comment on the still fresh struggles of pandemics and paranoia. He did as much with House Music All Night Long, accidentally so, and Locked Down feels like a fixated add-on, a chance to write a song about being stuck indoors on purpose, rather than accidentally.  

Third in a trio of unreleased songs and live debuts from a phenomenally underrated Glastonbury performance, Locked Down sounds almost ready for the studio. Proceed to the Route is found in the same performance, and a live debut of This is Going to Hurt precedes some chatter about the stone circle. Locked Down is a fitting track. A two-year absence of Glastonbury, paying tribute with an unreleased song feeling for reason in a rapid and ever-changing time. This is a break from anything Cocker has done in the past. It is a slower groove, a little like Swanky Modes or Save the Whale, but resolute in its dedication to an ethereal mystique. Longing becomes the core of this one, a song which wants nothing more than to be outdoors, shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers. But the “repressive chic” as Cocker calls it, has come back in style. It remains. There is a sense of the cold shoulder to Locked Down.  

Its baritone delivery of the title is what keeps it steady and refreshing. Locked Down is more on the nose than the accidental lockdown anthem, House Music All Night Long, and while it feels like an obvious comment on the coronavirus pandemic, Locked Down does well not to mention it. There are the particulars deep within, the specifics of a silent city and the slick guitar instrumentals to follow are a refreshing take on Cocker’s usual musical ventures. Much of Locked Down finds itself strapped in for a trip through a horrifying time. We may want to look away from the bombs dropping, the socially relevant moments, but the staggering loss present in the every day is a wonderful flourish from Cocker.

A fearsome track, one which has Cocker poised as an instrumentally daring artist. There is an end-of-world perspective held deep within this one, a powerhouse of a song when it pulls at the threads of a dying society. His cultural commentaries, from protest marches to powerful observations on the wars around us, are staggering. A shame it has not been released, may never be released. There is no sense of urgency to bring it out now, even if it stands as a still-relevant, punchy piece of spoken-word-like experiences. At a time when artists are trying to seek a new route, it feels relatively stunning to hear Cocker is the one with all the answers for this cultural malaise.