Never mind the Pistols, I fell into punk by f luke
Legendary ‘Bard of Salford’ John Cooper Clarke on how he went from cabaret to punk poet
I‘Finally I can make people miserable and there’s nothing they can do about it!’
n a black suit and shades under a shock of black hair, John Cooper Clarke has delivered poetry with punk energy for over 45 years. He supported Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and Joy Division at some of their early shows. Poems such as Beasley Street and Evidently Chickentown were comments on the malaise of British society in the late Seventies and early Eighties as potent as any managed by the new-wave bands of the era.
In recent years, Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner and Plan B have cited the ‘Bard of Salford’ as an influence. He has guested on albums by both the Sheffield band and the London rapper/actor.
Clarke will headline the biggest Irish show of his career in early May when he appears at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin during a series of Irish dates. The ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ tour is named after his uncharacteristically tender poem of the same name. It is on the UK’s GCSE English curriculum. When I ask the 73year-old how he feels about being studied by a generation of British children he jokes, ‘Oh it’s terrific! The idea that my poetry would be forced down the reluctant throats of schoolchildren on a daily basis is terrific. Finally I am in a position to make people miserable and there’s nothing they can do about it!’
There is nothing miserable about the veteran’s demeanour. When I call to talk to him, he is handed the phone by Evie, his French wife of more than 30 years. They have one daughter, Stella. He
cites both as the reason for being sober of drink and drugs for decades having battled addiction. He is fit and as stickthin as he was when he first hit the British singles charts with the track Gimmix back in 1979.
‘Your guess is as good as mine why I am stick-thin, as you put it. I enjoy the pleasures of the table more than most people,’ he chuckles.
‘I am looking forward very much to getting out on tour. I’m not a poet who writes to deal with my inner demons, I write poetry to entertain people; it’s my only skill really. I’d normally devote a proportion of my day to the manufacture of poetry, roughly speaking, office hours.
Given that I’ve been doing hardly any shows, it’s taken away my whole reason for writing, to be honest.’
On stage, he tells yarns and jokes that compliment the poems. He has the timing of any good standup comedian. Hardly surprising as before being subsumed into all things punk and new wave, he was billed with comedians and cabaret acts at venues around Manchester. The late controversial comedian Bernard Manning used to give him gigs at his Embassy Club.
He says that although he benefited from his association with punk, it wasn’t a movement that engendered much collegiality.
‘Everybody was out for themselves. They were making it up as they went along,’ he says. ‘There were only two rules: no beards and no flares. I already looked like that because I was trying to make it in the world of cabaret. I kind of looked like a proto-Paul Weller. I fitted in by accident.’
I ask if, after four and a half decades, he still enjoys performing.
‘If I wanted to enjoy it, I’d buy a ticket. I’m at work there,’ he says, adding with a laugh, ‘having said that, it’s a great job. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. Thank god it’s me.’