Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker was ‘very nervous’ about lyric that hit out at one of his biggest idols

A lyric written for a Pulp album left frontman Jarvis Cocker “very nervous” as it took aim at one of his biggest idols.

The Common People and Spike Island hitmaker confirmed his flightiness during an interview with The Ultimate Record Collector Magazine, explaining how he had written the lyric without ever thinking the target would ever hear it. Said target, Scott Walker, ended up in the production booth for Pulp’s 2001 album, We Love Life. It would mark the band’s final album until they released More twenty-four years later. Cocker confirmed that he approached Walker about the lyric before recording the song, and that their producer appeared capable of handling such a lyrical jab.

The song Bad Cover Version takes a swipe at Walker’s album, Til the Band Comes In, with Cocker suggesting the second side is not worth listening to. Cocker explained: “He was fine, he was OK. I’d written that song before and realised that it referenced him and was very nervous. I kept saying, ‘I’ve got to broach this subject with him before I actually start singing.’

“It was coming to the day when I was gonna start doing vocals and I’d kept just chickening it. And then one morning I went in and decided to just walk straight up to him and say, ‘Anyway, Scott, there’s this song on the record called Bad Cover Version and it mentions you,’ and blurted it all out.

“He was famously someone who never listened to his music after he’d recorded it, so he probably didn’t know exactly what I was talking about, but then eventually cottoned on, and eventually said, in a kind of sarcastic way, ‘Oh, this is the way you treat me, is it?’ But it was fine, he was cool.”

Before Walker was brought in as producer, Pulp had recorded demos for We Love Life, which remain unreleased, in the garden of a Queen member. Keyboardist Candida Doyle said: “We’ve been to his house. I didn’t see that [Freddie Mercury statue] though. We started recording there once.” Mark Webber added: “We started recording We Love Life in his garden. It was in the mill in his garden.”

Frontman Cocker then noted there were “black swans” around the property. The band very nearly did not finish We Love Life after sessions with This is Hardcore producer Chris Thomas were shelved. Doyle recalled: “I certainly thought about leaving [after shelving the Thomas sessions], but I realised that I’d still feel shit even if I did. If Scott Walker hadn’t come about, I don’t think we’d have bothered to finish this LP.”

The “love life” part of the title had been a firm choice for the band, though it had a slightly altered name when first recording. Cocker explained the decision to change the Pulp Love Life album name. He said: “It always looked like the name of the band’s Pulp and the album’s called Love Life.”