The Big Melt is a documentary film about the Sheffield steel industry which combines archive footage with a live soundtrack.

Cocker was initially reluctant to be involved because he felt that Sheffield's Steel City image was a cliché.

He agreed to take part after seeing footage of a boy putting two fingers up to the camera in the early 1900s, which reminded him of Kes, the film by Ken Loach.

[1][5] The Big Melt was billed as 'a brand new kind of heavy metal music', and as 'a music and film journey into the soul of a nation, bringing to life the ghosts of our past, taking us into the belly of the furnaces and showing how our souls have been stamped from the mighty presses of our industrial heritage'.

[6] The restoration and screening of the archive footage was done as part of the BFI's This Working Life: Steel project.