Aging & Wisdom Quote by Jarvis Cocker

Jarvis Cocker’s line lands like a pep talk delivered with a side-eye. “It’s OK to grow up” concedes what every pop lifer eventually has to admit: time moves, responsibilities accrue, the scene changes. But the second clause swerves into something more pointed - “just as long as you don’t grow old” - turning “old” into a moral category rather than a birthday. In Cocker-world, growing old isn’t wrinkles; it’s surrendering curiosity, turning into a manager of your own personality, choosing safety over appetite.

The kicker, “Face it you are young,” reads less like reassurance than a provocation. “Young” here isn’t an age bracket; it’s an identity you can claim or refuse. The subtext: stop treating youth as a vanishing resource you must hoard or mourn. Act like someone who still has time - because you do. It’s a classic Cocker move: anti-nostalgia dressed as encouragement, with an undertone of impatience for people who start narrating their decline at 28.

Context matters. Coming out of Britpop’s hangover and Pulp’s long arc - a band that made careers out of adult awkwardness, class friction, and sexual politics - Cocker has always been suspicious of conventional “maturity.” His characters want the adult world’s freedoms without its deadening compromises. The line works because it refuses the binary our culture loves: reckless youth vs. respectable adulthood. Cocker offers a third option: evolve, but don’t fossilize. Keep the ability to be surprised, embarrassed, and undone - the traits polite society trains out of you, and pop music tries to keep alive.