In the 12 years since the release of Arctic Monkeys’ multi-million-selling fifth album AM, the hit singles Do I Wanna Know?, R U Mine and Arabella remain fan favourites to this day – but more surprisingly, a simple album track has grown to tower above the rest in terms of worldwide popularity.
Closing the album is an atmospheric interpretation of I Wanna Be Yours, written by English ‘punk poet' John Cooper Clarke – a humorous, spoken-word ode transformed by the Sheffield band into a moody, yearning love song that has become both artists’ signature work in the process.
Speaking about the track on a video for Arctic Monkeys’ YouTube page, Clarke says: “I wrote [the] poem years ago. It’s a number in which I attempt to reduce myself to the level of a mere commodity for the greater good of the object of my desire.”
A decade on from the AM album’s release, the song became a viral sensation on TikTok – where countless Gen X and Millennial anthems have found a new lease of life via younger audiences.
Featured in countless creators’ videos, and with play counts from streaming services such as Spotify influencing the global charts, the resurgent I Wanna Be Yours has become the band’s most popular song ever.
On Spotify, eight songs from AM appear in Arctic Monkeys’ ten most played tracks, where I Wanna Be Yours leads the charge with an astonishing 3.4 billion streams worldwide.
When asked to react to this feat by The Guardian, Clarke replied: “Is that a lot? An American billion is different to a British billion – and I don’t know what either of them is. But it’s a fuck of a lot of listens!”
The song’s decade-long rise can also be partly credited to its popularity at wedding ceremonies, with Clarke commenting: “It is to 21st century nuptials what Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle is to humanist funerals.”
Appearing on his 1982 album Zip Style Method, Clarke’s own recording of the poem is a lighter, reverb-soaked bop complete with decade-appropriate drums and keyboards, and delivered in Clarke’s signature monotone delivery – a stark contrast to AM’s sparse, guitar-driven composition.
Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner, who was born four years after the song’s initial release, first chanced upon the poem in a high school English class, after it had been added to the UK’s school curriculum in the 1990s.
Describing this moment of fate, Turner revealed to the NME: “I was your typical teenager, trying to be cool and not interested [in school]. The teacher proceeded to read I Wanna Be Yours, doing an impression of [Clarke]. It made my ears prick up in the classroom because it was nothing like anything I’d heard, especially on this syllabus.”
Clarke is a notable inspiration for Turner – a celebrated wordsmith in his own right who, years before his own version of I Wanna Be Yours was recorded, once admitted to having Clarke’s name tattooed on his body.
Fans of either artist may note the similarities in Clarke and Turner’s writing styles. References to everyday items such as vacuum cleaners, raincoats and coffee pots from the poem’s original lyrics align perfectly with Turner’s own wordings – he referred to the object of his affection as “rarer than a can of Dandelion & Burdock” (a quintessentially British drink) on 2011’s Suck It and See. Both lyricists conjure romance and humour through the prism of working class, everyday mundanity.
Clarke considered name-dropping the British Leyland Morris Marina family car in the song’s opening verse, but switched it for a popular Ford model for a slicker rhyme.
He explained to The Guardian: “I had a second-hand [Morris Marina] at the time, but I thought, ‘Bit naff.’ It’s not got the clout of Cortina. Funny how some words are better than others.”
Arctic Monkeys’ cover of I Wanna Be Yours features a new bridge by Turner, who also tweaked Clarke’s original lyrics for its verses and hook.
Clarke, who referred to the band as “Britain’s premier beat combo”, was full of praise for Turner’s contributions: “All credit to my fellow lyricist Mr Alex Turner for spotting the romantic heart of this number, which I always kind of played for laughs in quite a throwaway fashion. What he’s done here is a very difficult thing, he’s [changed] it from a semi-comedic piece to a full-on love song, and I couldn't be more proud.”
Arctic Monkey’s version features new music composed by the band’s four members (completed by guitarist Jamie Cook, bassist Nick O’Malley and drummer Matt Helders), and is the first of their recorded songs to use a drum machine, believed to be a vintage Selmer MR-101.
Speaking to Off The Radar about the song’s creation, Turner said: “One day, I was sitting there with me four-track and there was this riff that I had laid down, and I sat there with headphones on and just started singing this melody and saying that line, ‘I want to be yours…’ and I remembered [Clarke’s] poem, like, ‘Oh, shit. Maybe we could make that fit somehow.’ And then James Ford, the producer, was like, ‘Why don’t we do a really slow jam feel?’ I thought those sweet, sexy melodies with a Johnny Clarke poem would be an awesome juxtaposition. An unlikely one…”
AM was the fifth of the band’s six consecutive albums to debut at No.1 in the UK charts, and has gone seven-times platinum in the UK and four-times platinum in the US, as well as being one of the UK’s best-selling vinyl records of the decade.
Arctic Monkeys have performed I Wanna Be Yours nearly 150 times to date; its latest outing being at Dublin’s 3Arena on the group’s second-to-last night of their most recent tour.
These days, Turner tends to play the song without a guitar altogether, though during the AM era he frequently used his 1961 Fender Jazzmaster with P-90 pickups. Meanwhile, Cook plays the song exclusively on his Bigsby-equipped Gibson ES-335 with covered humbuckers. Turner has been known to favour his Magnatone Custom 410 and Selmer Zodiac Twin 30 amps, while Cook has used a Hiwatt Studio/Stage 2x12 combo throughout his career.
To celebrate the album’s tenth anniversary, Clarke performed a reading of I Wanna Be Yours as the opening act for the band’s New York show on 9 September 2023 – a full-circle moment for the song’s original writer who benefitted from a massive surge in popularity thanks to the band’s cover.
Regarding the impact of Arctic Monkeys’ I Wanna Be Yours on his career, Clarke remains courteous, crediting the band for increasing fame. As he told the Independent: “The Arctic Monkeys, they’re the people who fucking jacked up my life to an incalculable degree. I love those guys.”
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