I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke

I'm about a third of the way through I Wanna Be Yours and, somewhat predictably, it's unadulterated joy. Joy on a stick, if you will. Superb anecdotes and whimsical gags abound and, beneath the wordplay, lurks hard earned wisdom too.

A couple of witty asides...

“Had I seen Schindler’s List? I was on Schindler’s List – Dr Schindler my dentist, that is”

Was Johnny's school was rough?

“...put it this way, we had our own coroner”

His whole take is unique, lyrical, individualistic and interesting

This book has got the lot

Loving it, loving it, loving it

I'm in the early 70s

Enjoyed his debut at Bernard Manning's club, and his various jobs, scams, clothes etc

His childhood is pure social history

JCC, truly a one off

I'm at that section now

I totally agree Stu

Bang on, as you say

I can't praise this book highly enough

This is the TV show he talks about watching at a certain musician's house

I ordered a hardback copy. I hope it arrives before Xmas

Here's my review....


I was riveted by I Wanna Be Yours from start to finish. John Cooper Clarke is social historian, social commentator, poet, ranconteur, joker. Every page is a delight.

I went for the audiobook version and it's sublime. I could listen to John Cooper Clarke read the telephone directory. To hear the great man read his hugely entertaining autobiography is a rare treat.

I Wanna Be Yours takes the reader from John's birth in 1949 through to the present day, and what a wild and wonderful life it has been. His impeccable taste and poet's sensibility was evident from a very young age.

Prior to making his name as a poet during the punk era, John worked variously as a bookie’s runner, an apprentice car mechanic, a cutter in the clothes trade, a trainee printer, a lab technician, and a firewatcher in Plymouth's naval dockyard. Throughout this period he retained his ambition to be a poet. Once he realised that he could perform poems as live entertainment he started to work in local comedy clubs including Bernard Manning's Embassy Club. Bernard Manning became an unlikely champion of the young JCC.

John was a heroin addict for a few decades, so the second half of the book contains a lot of detail about scoring drugs, many with celebrity addict pals and some are truly hair raising tales. Miraculously he survived despite nearly dying on three occasions. One time, whilst with Nico in Amsterdam, he scores off an old, skinny guy with grey greasy hair and no front teeth. It's only years later he realises, whilst watching the film Let’s Get Lost, that it was Chet Baker.

Improbably by the end of this memoir John is clean, has found domestic contentment with his soulmate wife with whom he has a daughter, and his professional stock has never been higher. He's nothing short of a national treasure.

A remarkable, unmissable book.

5/5

Here's hoping you enjoy it

Pretty confident yewl blaahdy lahve it