Common People

Jarvis Cocker (1963–)

As an odd preamble, I would like to recommend the brilliant graphic series by Kieron Gillen, who is probably most famous for his soon-to-be-concluded graphic series, The Wicked And The Divine. The series I’m recommending is collected as The Complete Phonogram HC, 504 pages, Image Comics, May 2017, ISBN 978-1534301511. The tale is in three parts: Volume 1, Rue Britannia; Volume 2, The Singles Club; and Volume 3, The Immaterial Girl. It’s about ‘90s Britpop and magic. It’s my all-time favorite music-related graphic work. And speaking of Britpop, it doesn’t get much Britpop-ier than “Common People”.

I didn’t get the gist of the song until I learned the words. While working out these songs, I’ve been constantly noticing how frequently I hadn’t noticed what a lot of the words to various songs actually were. This is mainly a characteristic of the rock ‘n’ roll era. Before that, it was pretty easy to make out the words to songs. This has remained true of the words in Country Music, which is one of the things I like about Country Music. But I didn’t catch the story in “Common People” until, as I say, I had to learn it.

In 2014 BBC Radio 6 voted “Common People” the most popular Britpop song. In 2015 Rolling Stone readers voted it the greatest Britpop song. NME named it #3 of the Greatest Indie Anthems Ever. Pitchfork calls it #2 of the Top 200 Tracks Of The 90s. But when Jarvis Cocker first showed the song to the band, keyboard player Candida Doyle was the only one who saw its potential. They took two weeks to record it, using all 48 of the studio’s tracks. Jarvis Cocker said of the encounter with the woman who inspired the song, “She didn’t ask to sleep with me, I wanted to sleep with her.” Points to him for admitting that.