It was 1995. Britpop was at its absolute, bloated peak. While Oasis was busy singing about champagne supernovas and Blur was mocking the middle class with "Country House," a lanky, slightly awkward man named Jarvis Cocker decided to drop a nuclear bomb of a track.
The song? Pulp Common People.
It’s arguably the greatest pop song ever written about class warfare. Honestly, it’s not even just a song; it’s a six-minute sociological study wrapped in a dirty synth-pop hook. If you were there, you remember the video—Jarvis in that tight suit, dancing like a man possessed in a technicolor grocery store. But beneath the catchy melody lies a biting, cynical, and deeply true observation about "class tourism" that feels even more relevant today than it did thirty years ago.
The Greek Student and the Birth of a Legend
The story starts at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Jarvis was studying film there in the late eighties. He met a girl. She was rich. She was Greek. She told him she wanted to move to Hackney and live "like common people."
She thought poverty was a lifestyle choice. An aesthetic. A fashion statement you could put on and take off like a vintage leather jacket.
Jarvis, who actually knew what it was like to be broke in Sheffield, found the whole thing repulsive. He didn't write the song immediately, though. It simmered. It sat in his brain for years until he bought a cheap, slightly broken Siel Orchestra synthesizer from a Music and Video Exchange shop. He started playing a simple three-note riff.
The rest of the band—Nick Banks on drums, Candida Doyle on keys, Steve Mackey on bass, and Russell Senior on guitar—weren't immediately sold. In fact, they thought it was a bit basic. But as the song grew and the lyrics got sharper, they realized they were sitting on something massive.
Why Pulp Common People Isn't Just Your Average Pop Song
Most pop songs are about love, or dancing, or maybe being a bit sad. Pulp Common People is about the impossibility of ever truly understanding someone else's struggle if you have a safety net.
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Think about the lyrics. "Rent a flat above a shop / Cut your hair and get a job."
The Greek girl (whose identity has been the subject of endless internet sleuthing, with names like Danae Stratou, the wife of former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, often being tossed around—though never confirmed by Jarvis) thinks she can just "be" poor. But Jarvis shuts that down with the most devastating line in the track: "If you called your dad he could stop it all."
That’s the crux of it.
Real poverty isn't a costume. It’s the constant, low-level hum of anxiety that never goes away because there is no "Dad" to call. There is no escape hatch. When the girl in the song watches "roaches climb the wall," she sees it as an adventure. To the people actually living there, it’s just life. It's a trap.
The song builds. It starts small, almost conversational, and then it spirals into this frantic, claustrophobic climax. By the end, Jarvis is practically screaming. He’s angry. He’s mocking. He’s telling her that she’ll never fail like common people because she can’t.
The Sound of Class War
Musically, the song is a masterpiece of tension. It’s a crescendo that lasts nearly six minutes. It’s got that disco beat, but it feels urgent, not celebratory.
- The Siel Orchestra synth provides that thin, slightly "cheap" sound.
- Candida’s keyboard flourishes add a sense of mounting drama.
- The tempo never actually increases, but it feels like it’s getting faster because of the density of the arrangement.
It’s interesting because the song almost didn't make it to the top of the charts. It was held off the number one spot by Robson & Jerome’s "Unchained Melody." Looking back, that feels like a cosmic joke. One of the most important cultural statements of the decade beaten by a glorified karaoke track. But honestly, that’s very "Common People," isn't it? The authentic stuff rarely wins the popularity contest in the moment.
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The Cultural Impact and That Glastonbury Performance
If you want to understand the power of this song, you have to watch the 1995 Glastonbury performance. Pulp wasn't even supposed to headline. The Stone Roses dropped out because John Squire broke his collarbone in a cycling accident.
Pulp stepped in.
They played to a massive, muddy crowd. When they hit the opening notes of Pulp Common People, something shifted. It wasn't just a band playing a song; it was a communal exorcism. Tens of thousands of people singing along to a song about how much it sucks to be looked down upon by the wealthy.
It solidified Jarvis Cocker as the unlikely poet laureate of the British working class. He wasn't a "hard man" like the Gallaghers. He was a skinny, intellectual outsider who saw exactly how the gears of British society turned.
The Legacy of the "Class Tourist"
The reason we’re still talking about this song in 2026 is that the "class tourist" hasn't gone away. If anything, they've multiplied.
We see it on social media every day. Influencers romanticizing "minimalist" lifestyles that are really just high-end versions of poverty aesthetics. Trust fund kids moving into gentrified neighborhoods and acting like they discovered the place. People "van-lifing" in $100,000 Mercedes Sprinters while the people actually living in vans because of the housing crisis are being moved along by the police.
Jarvis saw it coming.
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He knew that the wealthy would always try to co-opt the "cool" parts of struggle without ever wanting the reality of it. You can't "laugh along with the common people" when you know your future is already paid for. It’s a lie.
How to Truly Appreciate Common People Today
To get the most out of this track now, you have to look past the Britpop nostalgia. Forget the Union Jacks and the Blur vs. Oasis drama.
- Listen to the full album version. The radio edit cuts out too much of the build-up. You need those middle verses where the anger really starts to boil over.
- Read the lyrics as poetry. Seriously. "You will never understand / How it feels to live your life / With no meaning or control / And with nowhere left to go." That’s heavy stuff for a pop song.
- Watch the William Shatner cover. No, really. It sounds like a joke, but Ben Folds produced it, and Shatner’s spoken-word delivery brings out a weird, theatrical aggression in the lyrics that you might miss in the original. It shouldn't work, but it does.
- Notice the production. Produced by Chris Thomas (who worked with the Sex Pistols and Pink Floyd), the song is incredibly polished despite its "cheap" synth roots. The way the layers of sound pile up until the final explosion is a masterclass in pop production.
What Most People Get Wrong
People often think the song is just a "fun" anthem. They sing it at weddings. They dance to it at indie discos.
But it’s actually a very mean song.
It’s a middle finger. It’s Jarvis telling this girl—and everyone like her—that they are fundamentally incapable of experiencing the reality of the people they find so fascinating. It’s a song about the impenetrable wall between the "haves" and the "have-nots."
It’s also not a "pro-working class" song in a traditional sense. It doesn't glamorize being poor. It describes it as "meaningless," "boring," and "disposable." Jarvis isn't saying the "common people" are noble; he’s saying their lives are hard and that pretending otherwise is an insult.
Actionable Insights for Music Lovers and Historians
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the world of Pulp and the social commentary of that era, here is what you should do next:
- Explore the "Different Class" album in its entirety. Songs like "I Spy" and "Mis-Shapes" tackle similar themes of class resentment and the feeling of being an outsider.
- Research the 1994-1996 UK political climate. Understanding the end of the Tory era and the rise of "Cool Britannia" gives the song much-needed context. It was written at a time when the UK was desperate for change, but the "change" that came (New Labour) often felt like a polished version of the same old class structures.
- Analyze the video's aesthetic. Directed by Pedro Romhanyi, it uses a visual style known as "kitchen sink realism" mixed with pop-art colors. It perfectly mirrors the song’s themes of making the mundane look like a spectacle.
- Check out Jarvis Cocker’s radio show/writings. He remains one of the most articulate voices in music. His book, Good Pop, Bad Pop, offers a lot of insight into how his brain works and how he curated the "trash" of his life into art.
The brilliance of Pulp Common People is that it doesn't offer a solution. It doesn't say "eat the rich." It just points at the girl in the supermarket and says: "You’ll never get it. And you never will."
That honesty is why it’s still the definitive song of its generation. It didn't try to be cool. It tried to be true. And thirty years later, it still is.