He wants to be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust...
""What kind of creature bore you?
Was it some kind of bat?
They can’t find a good word for you,
but I can...
TWAT.""
— '''Twat"", one of his most famous poems.
John Cooper Clarke is a poet and musician who was most popular during the late 70s/early 80s but has had widespread success in recent years. Hailed as Manchester's 'punk poet', he is a key figure of the punk rock era in the UK, from his biting prose to his famously Messy Hair.
These fucking tropes are fucking fucked...
- Audio Adaptation: The Arctic Monkeys song 'I Wanna Be Yours'
is an adaption of his poem of the same name. - Cluster F-Bomb: His poem Evidently Chickentown is a prime example of the Cluster F Bomb, using the word 83 times throughout the poem (though in some versions, he tones it down by saying "bloody" instead).
- Messy Hair: His distinctive scruffy black hair reflects his punk rock image.
- Oop North: John is from Salford in Northern England. When recollecting his childhood, he had some rather grim memories to share.
John: I used to think trees were dirty, because when I was a kid in Salford you'd climb them and come off filthy, it was like you'd been up a chimney... and even if you got a stretch of park you just had to scrape the grass and there were, like, cinders underneath... it was horrible...
- Three Chords and the Truth: A staple of all of John's music. Since he is a poet above all, his focus is always on the lyrics, letting the tune stay more minimal.
