When Britpop gets brought up, it’s almost always a focus on the “Battle of Britpop” and the rivalry between Oasis and Blur. But when a “best songs of Britpop” list springs up, there’s often a whole other song at the top of it. If you are even halfway decent at guessing, you could probably figure that the song is Common People by the band Pulp.
Common People was the lead single from Pulp’s fifth album Different Class, which released toward the end of 1995 in the height of the Britpop phenomenon. The single was released 5 months in advance of the full-length.
While Pulp benefited from the wave of British alt-rock, they themselves were not newcomers to the scene – Pulp were formed in 1978 and were on the indie circuit until the 1990’s brought their form of music more into style. This was a case of a scene finding a band, rather than a band finding a scene. Nor was the success sudden – Pulp were a rising star already through the early part of the decade as alt-rock became the new dominant form of rock.
Common People is an upbeat, keyboard-driven tune, which has been the general territory of Pulp through the years. Its dance-ability differentiates it from the more rock-oriented “Britpop,” though Blur did have moments of electro-tourism in their music. Pulp’s simpler, “retro disco” themed take on songs worked extremely well here and caught the attention of music fans the world over.
The song’s theme is a big one – it addresses the issue of “slum tourism,” where people of means want to live in squalid conditions as some kind of thrill seeking thing. And while the song was dramatized a fair bit for effect, there is truth behind the opening lines. Common People was inspired by when singer Jarvis Cocker attended St. Martin’s College in 1988. He ran into a girl who was Greek and was studying art, and the girl indicated an interest in living “like common people.”
Cocker did add a bit to the song, chiefly that the girl was pursuing him, while in reality Cocker was pursuing the girl and she was not at all interested. There have also been attempts to nail down who the woman was and a few interesting possibilities came up, though nothing has definitely been said about the matter.
Common People does accomplish its mission in railing against the idea of class tourism. For a well-off person to “slum it” for a bit is really nothing – all that person has to do is pick up the phone and call, as in the case of the girl in the song, she can call her father and he can stop it all. For the common person, there is no one to call to get a lift out of the despair of being broke and having no prospects for a better future beyond a winning lottery ticket that never comes.
This song became a huge hit in the Britpop era of 1995, the single hit number 2 in the UK and sold over a million copies, it also propelled the album Different Class to also move a million each in the UK and on the continent. Common People has endured as a top shelf tune since its release, it is often found at or near the top of most “Best of Britpop” lists and NME magazine even voted it the best song of the 1990’s. Many bands from all across music have covered the song, one very notable rendition came from 2004 and the tandem of William Shatner and Ben Folds. The pair were joined by Joe Jackson for a pretty unique and crazy version of the song that got a lot of attention and did a lot to kick off Shatner’s quirky music career.
For Pulp, Common People would be their magnum opus, though the band held serve through the 1990’s as their sound was more diverse and proved able to navigate the sudden closure of the Britpop shop. Pulp have split and reconvened a few times through the 2000’s, including having just been on a reunion run this year. But no matter what they do now, their crown jewel of a song will remain immortal and speak to the lives of many all over who know all too well what’s it like to live like common people.
The Crooked Wanderer 