Pop star Jarvis Cocker has spoken frankly to the BBC
about how his father's disappearance - when he was just seven - shaped
his views of marriage.
Speaking to Sue Lawley on BBC Radio 4's Desert
Island Discs, Cocker says "I guess it was a strange split in
so much as my father just disappeared.
"He went to Australia and I didn't see him again for twenty-odd
years... I remember quite soon after my dad going consciously thinking,
'Yeah, that [marriage] doesn't work - so I'm not going to have any part
in it'."
Cocker reveals later in the interview that he deliberately took a couple
of years off to bring up his son.
"Maybe because of my dad disappearing and stuff like that, I've got more
of a bee in my bonnet about being a 'hands-on parent' or a 'new man' or
whatever.
"I definitely decided I had the resources to take a bit of time
off and do that," he says.
He also speaks frankly about his surprise at actually getting on stage
during the infamous 1996 Brit Awards incident in which he interrupted
Michael Jackson's stage act.
"You'd have thought there'd have been some security or something, but
lo and behold the next thing I'm on stage and not really know what to
do.
"So of course when in doubt - wiggle your bum about in front of
people!" he says.
Cocker's song choices include Ten Guitars by Engelbert Humperdinck, the
theme from the television series of The Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe
and Radio 4's very own Sailing By from the Shipping Forecast, which he
says he has "for many years used as an aid to restful sleep".
Cocker reveals that he's never read the Bible but would look forward
to reading it on a desert island to "see what all the fuss is about".
His luxury item would be a bed "with a mosquito net if possible. I think
as long as you've got a decent night's sleep, you can deal with things
a lot better".
This interview can be heard in full on Desert Island Discs on Radio 4
at 11.15am on Sunday 24 April, and again at 9.00am on Friday 29 April.
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