Everybody wants to rule the world

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      Well, maybe Jarvis Cocker doesn’t, but the former Pulp singer has a few choice words for those who do.

      With a rich history of outrageous behaviour behind him–including shaking his ass cheeks at Michael Jackson during a Wacko Jacko performance at the 1996 Brit Awards–Jarvis Cocker should be anything but boring when he makes his first Vancouver appearance. The former vocalist for '90s Britpop phenoms Pulp is more than willing to share the spotlight though. On his MySpace page he's put out a call for opening acts. The singer likes to pick a local artist in each city that he plays.

      "I'm desperately trying to go through them all and give them a fair listen so I can make a choice," he says, on the line from his adopted home of Paris.

      Though he hasn't made any decisions yet, Cocker will reject any who openly ape his past work. "I avoid bands that say they're influenced by Pulp; that's straight out."

      Though Cocker's solo debut, simply titled Jarvis , is overrun with the baritone singer's familiar lyrical musings, his musical direction has drifted away from the bright, booming rock of Pulp into more delicate compositions, a direction almost feared by the musician.

      "It was a concern of mine that, as an artist in his 40s, maybe I was going to make one of those acoustic balladeer albums," he admits. "Even though some of the music is quieter, and certainly a lot sparser, I think the lyrical content is probably harsher than it was before."

      The best example of this is perhaps "Running the World," a secret track on Jarvis that finds the singer still sticking up for the common people by lambasting capitalist society. Relaxed piano chords open the tune as the singer observes: "The cream cannot help but always rise up to the top. Well I say, shit floats." A light-hearted one-two beat kicks the song into a soft-rocker before the singsong chorus announces: "Cunts are still running the world."

      "It's a stinging critique of global capitalism," he says of the track.

      "Fat Children" may stray from the disc's softer pacing, with dirty guitars clanging mercilessly atop heavy snare hits, but it fits the overall tone by targeting the swollen stomachs of England's youth. The song pounds through a wild scenario of a man being attacked by a gang of chubby children. Unaided by the police, the man dies, only to return as a ghost crying out "Fat children took my life". Though it could be argued that his anger lies more with violent children than plump ones, Cocker's humorous tale targets lazy parents as much as it does its husky antagonists.

      "I go back to London quite a lot," he explains. "I noticed there are a lot more overweight children than there were over here. I just started ranting about the fat kids and also about the shitty, feckless parents who rely on their kids to end up like that."

      Cocker adds that he relishes walking his own kids to school, but allows that the song has definitely pissed off at least one parent: his mother.

      "She said she was nearly sick when she heard it," the vocalist says regretfully before adding: "But then she said she thought it would be a hit!"

      Jarvis Cocker plays the Commodore Ballroom on Tuesday (May 1).

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