The Shipping Forecast provides an “oasis of calm”, Jarvis Cocker said as he marked the 100th anniversary of it being broadcast on the BBC.
Produced by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), the Shipping Forecast was first aired on BBC radio on July 4 1925.
To celebrate the anniversary, Pulp frontman Cocker recorded a forecast that will be broadcast to an audience at the Crossed Wires: The Podcast Festival in Sheffield.
The singer said the Shipping Forecast is “something you absorb unconsciously if you live in the UK”.
“It’s been on the airwaves for over 100 years,” he added.
“Now technically speaking, it’s a weather guide designed to help sailors on the high seas.
“But it helps people navigate in other ways than that.
“For instance, for insomniacs, it’s a mantra that hopefully helps them drift finally off to sleep.”
The singer added: “I think it’s known around the world as a go-to chill-out thing – before chill-out things were invented, probably.”
Asked why he felt the Shipping Forecast was important, Cocker said it was “comforting”.
He added: “I think because even though sometimes it’s talking about bad weather conditions and storms and stuff, it’s actually an oasis of calm in the day.
“There’s no musical backing to it, it’s just a human voice talking to you.
“Some words, which you don’t really know what they mean at all, but the sound of it is comforting and will put you into a nice place.”
Cocker said German Bight was among his favourite Shipping Forecast place names, adding: “For some reason I always think of a cocktail sausage there.
“I suppose it’s because a frankfurter cocktail sausage is a small frank.”
Asked how he imagined the Shipping Forecast may sound in 100 years’ time, the frontman said: “It may be a robot who is saying ‘north to northwesterly, occasionally poor’.
“I hope not.
“I think it would be better to keep it as a person. Who knows?
“We don’t know what the world’s going to look like in 100 years, or whether people will even be in it.
“If people are still in it, it might all be water.
“So everybody will be listening to it.
“It’d be like the number one programme, because everybody will be in a boat.”
Cocker’s band Pulp made a surprise appearance at Glastonbury Festival last week, performing under the pseudonym Patchwork.
The secret set came 30 years after their headline performance at the festival when they stood in for The Stone Roses after the Manchester band’s guitarist John Squire was injured in a cycling accident.
The Sheffield group formed in 1978 and are best known for hit song Common People.
In June, the band released More, their first studio album since 2001’s We Love Life.
