Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker fears he has lost his greatest ever song after a voicemail message containing the melody was erased by a cell phone company.

The Common People hitmaker calls his own number and sings into the answering service if a track comes to him while he is out and about.

He was away from the U.K. when he came up with one of his strongest ever melodies, but by the time he arrived back in his native country the message containing the song idea had been automatically deleted.

Cocker tells British magazine Event, "I used to leave myself voicemails when I had ideas. In one case, I was away a week and a half and when I came back it had been deleted. I asked the phone company to access my voice messages, but they wouldn't. I said: 'If I'd been killed and they had an investigation into my murder you'd be able to look through my voicemail. So it must exist.' She said: 'Yeah, but you've not been killed.' So I lost it and maybe it was the greatest song ever."