Day After Day #20: Common People

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Common People (1995)

We didn't feel the impact as much over here, but in the mid-'90s, Britpop was all the rage across the pond. Oasis and Blur got most of the attention, but there's a strong argument to be made that the best band to emerge from that scene was Pulp. 

The band had actually been around since the late '70s, when frontman Jarvis Cocker and Peter Dalton formed a band that sounded like a combination of ABBA and the Fall. Pulp's career really got into gear in 1992 with the release of their third album Separations, which had been recorded three years earlier. After getting some good notices, the band signed to Island Records and released His 'n' Hers in 1994, which reached #9 on the UK Albums Chart. Pulp opened for Blur on a U.S. tour. 

But it was 1995 when Pulp hit the big time, at least in the U.K. The album Different Class entered the UK Albums Chart at #1 and won the 1996 Mercury Music Prize. The biggest splash from this record came from the lead single "Common People." The song pokes at rich folks "roughing it" by hanging out with the "common people." Cocker came up with the lyrics after meeting a Greek art student while taking a college course. There's been plenty of speculation about who the song is about; Cocker says he doesn't remember.

"You wanna live like common people/You wanna see whatever common people see/Wanna sleep with common people/You wanna sleep with common people like me/But she didn't understand/She just smiled and held my hand."

Musically, "Common People" starts with a simple keyboard line before launching into full guitar anthem mode. The song ended up hitting #2 on the UK Singles Chart. While it didn't chart over here, "Common People" gave Pulp a bigger profile in the U.S. Meanwhile, the band was huge in the UK but tensions were rising and Cocker was growing disillusioned with the trappings of fame. The followup, 1998's This Is Hardcore, also did well, reaching #1 in the UK and #114 on the Billboard 200 album chart in the U.S. Pulp released We Love Life just after 9/11 in 2001 and it was received well critically but less successful commercially. The band members then went their separate ways before reuniting for shows in 2011 and again last year. Cocker has released four well-received solo albums, the most recent being 2017's JARV IS.

"Common People" has been covered a few times, most notably by William Shatner on his 2004 album Has Been, which was produced by Ben Folds. The song starts off with Shatner's spoken-word interpretation before launching into a guitar-driven rocker featuring Joe Jackson on vocals. It's actually pretty good. Other covers have been done by My Chemical Romance and Libitina.

The song has done well in listicles from the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, NME and in fan polls. Talk about a lasting impact. "Common People" still packs a sarcastic punch.