John Cooper Clarke

Born in Salford, near Manchester, in 1949, John Cooper Clarke emerged in the late 1970s in the wake of the British punk scene with a form then uncommon: a stage poetry that was dry, fast and biting, spoken rather than sung. Associated with performance poetry and punk poetry, he developed a style built on delivery, dark humour, social satire and a very precise sense of rhythm, often a cappella but also, on record, accompanied by post‑punk and new wave instrumentation. After the 1977 EP Innocents, he released the albums Où est la maison de fromage? (1978), Disguise in Love (1978), Snap, Crackle & Bop (1980) and Zip Style Method (1982), while sharing bills with bands such as Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Fall. Remaining active on stage over the decades, he also returned to the studio with This Time It’s Personal, recorded with Hugh Cornwell in 2016. His writing, popular in its diction and sharp in its perspective, circulated far beyond the poetry circuit and into British indie rock, notably via Arctic Monkeys’ adaptation of his text 'I Wanna Be Yours' in 2013.