John Cooper Clarke

The first ever autobiography of the Bard of Salford, John Cooper Clarke.John Cooper Clarke is a phenomenon: Poet Laureate of Punk, rock star, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter, social and cultural commentator, reluctant national treasure. At 5 feet 11 inches (116lb, 32in chest, 27in waist), in trademark suit jacket, skin-tight drainpipes and dark glasses, with jet-black back-combed hair and mouth full of gold teeth, he is instantly recognizable. As a writer his voice is equally unmistakable and his inimitable dry Salford drawl shines through the prose.This autobiography covers an extraordinary life, filled with remarkable personalities: from Nico to Chuck Berry, all the great punks to Bernard Manning, and on to more recent fans and collaborators Alex Turner and Plan B - who have championed his work. Interspersed with stories of his rock and roll and performing career, John also reveals his boggling encyclopaedic knowledge of twentieth-century popular culture, and his private passions and guilty pleasures: from Baudelaire, Pam Ayres and Rimbaud to football to Coronation Street, comprising horse racing and gambling, politics, jokes and much more.I Wanna Be Yours is a no holds barred account of the Bard of Salford's rock and roll life. It is a memoir as wry, funny, moving and vivid as only John Cooper Clarke could deliver.

I Wanna Be Yours

Mark

Great read, I knew his poetry, but had no idea of his incredible back story. 
To think, the "Godfather of British , performance poetry" now walks the same paths as me. Next time we pass each other, maybe we can discuss our mutual love of Louis Prima!

Fraser Simons

I’m always a little amazed people remember so much minutia. I imagine once you get going it all comes back, but you’d expect it wouldn’t be sharp. 

At any rate, this was a nice and chill, contemplative recounting of the authors life. It’s very much an assumption of the writer as to what is interesting or not; this time being you obviously want to hear about the punk rock scene in the UK and a sort of behind the scenes meets my life hooked on drugs. 

That meets my expectations. It is quite candid and unapologetic (the way I expected it would be based on his personal), what-you-see-is-more-or-less-what-you-get way. He is certainly not painted in a great light, problematic in the ways you’d expect, raised in the 50s. I imagine this will put off some people. You’re not a great person if you give your girlfriend VD, invite her to move in because you feel bad, go on tour, shack up with some else, and completely ghost the ex who doesn’t know she’s an ex.

I imagine this about the same as most of these stories, a bit of embarrassing stories, wow I was an asshole, but also there’s some stuff I’ll never air and it is what it is. 

It is more enjoyable because it’s read by the author and the delivery is great. It’s genuinely interesting if you’re interested in the scene or him. It’s granular in his early years and then the pacing kicks it up when he starts writing poetry and getting into the scene. It stops somewhat abruptly as he says from here on out it’s more of the same.m, which is odd because there’s none of the ‘Here’s what I became’. It’s anchored solely in growing up and professional career/ The Scene, with some personal accounting of addiction and who he was dating at the time. 

It’s unnecessarily sad a bit that his more progressive thoughts and actions don’t make the cut after the most “interesting” part of his life, kind of. I suppose it might have undercut the more shitty/dramatic aspects of the narrative? Or perhaps that bits saved for another book. Who knows.

I Wanna Be Yours

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