Jarvis Cocker and his band Pulp were the art, literary (and elder) outsiders who created youth anthems for everyday people during a ’90s Britpop craze they also despised.
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But Cocker is no stranger to contrarian behavior. He famously protested a Michael Jackson performance at the 1996 Brit Awards by rushing the stage and waving his butt toward the King of Pop.
Still, the Pulp hit “Disco 2000” reflects Cocker’s youth and ultimately became more significant than its subject.
Your Name is Deborah
When Cocker was born in Sheffield, England, in 1963, his mother shared a hospital room with a woman who had given birth to a girl named Deborah. He and Deborah eventually became classmates, and people said they’d someday marry.
Cocker glimpses back to this time, overcome by nostalgia, and imagines the possibility of a life with Deborah.
After mentioning her name, Cocker writes, It never suited ya. She’s extraordinary, but the ordinary name just doesn’t fit the ideal girl. (Imagine if Cocker had a pedestrian name like Tom).
Oh, we were born within an hour of each other
Our mothers said we could be sister and brother
Your name is Deborah (Deborah)
It never suited ya
And they said that when we grew up
We’d get married and never split up
Oh, we never did it, although I often thought of it
The Pulp singer remained infatuated with Deborah, but as she came of age, all his schoolmates were after her, too. He became despondent, thinking he never had a chance.
Oh, the boys all loved you, but I was a mess
I had to watch them try and get you undressed
We were friends; that was as far as it went
I used to walk you home sometimes, but it meant
Oh, it meant nothing to you
’Cause you were so popular
In the Year 2000
Pulp released A Different Class in 1995, and the new millennium became a regular topic of ’90s conversations. Many feared that computers would shut down—something to do with the two-digit code written by engineers in the ’60s—and everything from banks to power plants would be at risk.
And I said, Let’s all meet up in the year 2000
Won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown?
Be there two o’clock by the fountain down the road
I never knew that you’d get married
I would be living down here on my own
On that damp and lonely Thursday years ago
The Y2K bug, so-called, didn’t cause a global catastrophe. (The world would have to wait until 2020 for things to grind to a halt).
However, Cocker, feeling the weight of time, though not necessarily because of Y2K, asks Deborah to meet in 2000. In real life, Deborah eventually married man named Colin Bone.
The Real Deborah
Deborah Bone was a pioneering mental health worker who received an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for community service. She died in 2015 at 51 from bone marrow cancer.
The Guardian reported Bone helped children with anxiety and developed the Bright Stars program, which primary schools in England adopted. She also established a visual resource called Brainbox to help with stress levels among young people.
Cocker and Bone remained close friends, and he sang “Disco 2000” at her 50th birthday celebration.
A Photographic Love Story
Director Pedro Romhanyi adapted the band’s single artwork for the music video, which follows a boy and a girl at a weekend disco. Pulp appears in the video as cardboard cutouts.
Romhanyi created an artificial world using images created by fashion photographer Donald Milne, who made the cover for A Different Class. Milne used the theme from the album artwork to shoot a photographic love story depicted on the single’s CD cover for “Disco 2000.”
Milne’s photo love story replaced the unrequited love narrative in “Disco 2000.”
Pulp’s late bassist, Steve Mackey, suggested the cardboard cutouts, which echoed a vintage copy of the British woman’s magazine Nova. Romhanyi said Cocker and Mackey “like things quite crafted and with a sense of structure.”
Britpop Irony
Irony became a defining tool for Pulp, and few artists match Cocker’s wit. He documented the absurdity and exploitation of lower-class voyeurism in the Pulp anthem “Common People,” but also turned his lens around.
In “Disco 2000,” he documents his life in Sheffield and writes about his infatuation with a girl who later became his lifelong friend.
Cocker is a vivid example of the wallflower who became a cultural icon. He’s high style and camp and begrudgingly became connected to Britpop.
He told NME that Britpop “made me throw up at the time.”
Cocker added, “I’m really glad that at the time, I didn’t get hoodwinked and go along with that because I do hate that jingoism. I think we’ve seen the ugly, horrible side of that in Brexit, and it’s a real shame.”
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Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella
