Pulp – "Common People" (1995)

She came from Greece

She had a thirst for knowledge

She studied sculpture at Saint Martins College

“Common People” is a snarky song about a Greek art student that Blur frontman Jarvis Cocker wanted to sleep with.  Unfortunately for Cocker, the woman had no desire to sleep with him.

If she had slept with him, I’m pretty sure the song would have been quite a bit less snarky.

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Cocker met the woman in 1988 while both were students at the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design in London.

The woman told him that her father was very wealthy, but that she wanted to move to Hackney – which was a very sketchy neighborhood at the time – and “live like the common people.”

The singer in “Common People” tells the woman that even if she rents a crummy, cockroach-infested flat and spends all her time dancing, drinking, and screwing, she’ll never truly be one of the common people because “[i]f you called your dad, he could stop it all.”

Cocker – whose father had deserted the family when he was seven – knew that people with rich daddies will never have a clue what life among the “common people” was really like.  His song heaps scorn on “class tourists” like the Greek art student who “think that [being] poor is cool.”   

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“Common People” is considered by many to be the greatest of all the records that came out of the Britpop movement of the 1990s.  (My personal Britpop favorite is Blur’s “Parklife.”)

The producers of a 2006 BBC documentary about “Common People” went through Central St. Martins enrollment records in an unsuccessful attempt to ascertain just who the Greek art student in the song was.  (They thought they had identified the woman in question, but Cocker told them they were wrong after watching a video interview of her.)

In 2015, a Greek newspaper concluded that a different female artist was the subject of the song, but that woman – who was the daughter of a textile magnate and went to Central St. Martins at the right time – has neither confirmed or denied the rumor.

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Click here to watch the official music video for “Common People.”  (It’s dreamy!)

Click here to buy “Common People” from Amazon.