As we head out on R&R tonight, I decided I'd do one last MILB to finish the week off right. In doing so, I chose a song from seminal BritPop band, Pulp. The logical connection on this being that Pulp is from Sheffield, as is Lovely English Lass. We'll be going to Sheffield on this trip... I think you can see where I'm going with this. Of course it could have been Joe Cocker or Def Leppard if it was only by Sheffield. Or the Arctic Monkeys for that matter.
Anyways, I chose Pulp because of two main reasons: 1) Most of my American Friends probably never heard this song or of this band, and 2) they really should have if they haven't. Talk about an eclectic band! They have an electric violinist, a keyboardist, drummer, bass and two guitars along with the lead singer. Jarvis Cocker is probably one of the best front men you'll ever see in rock music. If you've seen the "Harry Potter" movies, he plays the lead singer for the Weird Sisters band. String bean thin, and constant energy throughout the entire show, you can't help but watch him move around. Even nearing 50 he's a blur of motion. The origins of the band start in 1978, and they played continually until 2001. They then took a break and reunited in 2011. They have staying power, and a great sound to boot.
Now, onto the song. During his performance at the Reading Festival in 2011, Jarvis talked about "Common People" before playing it. Bands with one huge hit sometimes have a love/hate relationship with their song. Kurt Cobain felt that way about "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and I know Chesney Hawkes feels that way about "The One and Only" because a friend of mine sat next to him at a concert and started singing it and he told her to shut up. Jarvis said, basically, if Pulp were only known for this one song he'd be ok with that, because it's a good song. He then makes a joke about how Black Lace are only known for Agadoo, so it could be worse.
The background of the song is that in the late 80s early 90s in London there was a set of people that were upper-middle to upper class that wanted to pretend they were poor. It wasn't anything really new, to be honest. (As much as I love Joe Strummer and The Clash, he was still the son of a British Diplomat. He had a fake cockney accent. I think Chelsea footballer Frank Lampard also fits into this as well.) But there was a sudden interest in this during this time period. Even Blur's song, "Parklife" was a bit like this. A feeling of the real salt of the earth people being the lower classes. Basically people wanted to do an anthropological study of the lower classes.
So the song actually starts autobiographically, as Jarvis is approached by a rich Greek girl studying at St. Martins College about wanting to live like common people. That actually happened. She told him she wanted to live in Hackney like the common people. The narrator of the song then takes her places where "common people" go and shows her that it's not all it's cracked up to be. But he also tells her that even if she gets a place where "Roaches climb the walls" that she'll never be a common person, because all she'll have to do is call her rich father and he can take her out of all of it.
Jarvis is pointing out some things here that needed to be said at the time. What he's saying is, "Look, it's all nice and good that you want to be like us, but this is our life, and you're just doing this to be fashionable." The bridge of this song is just awesome:
Sing along with the common people,
sing along and it might just get you through,
laugh along with the common people,
laugh along even though they're laughing at you,
and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.
Brilliant, and spot on. No one wants to think they've had the piss taken out of them by imitation. They mock those people who try to act less than what they are in life. It's a certainty. Some people can actually pull this off. The best politicians can do it. Think: Roosevelt was a man that was extremely rich, but made the majority of the country feel like he felt their pain. Kennedy was the same way. George W. Bush was the son of a President, born in Connecticut and went to an Ivy League school, but people considered him someone they'd like to have a beer with. Al Gore had a lot of the same pedigree as GWB, but he's still mocked for being uptight and wooden. Same with John Kerry. It's difficult to do.
This song is just brilliant, as I've stated before. Pulp came of age in Sheffield right during the time when the factories were starting to close, so they saw hardship and prosperous areas losing everything. The 1980s were not kind to the north of England, and as I know full well, the North is filled with some very proud people. (Especially Yorkshire but also Merseyside and Lancashire.) Southern Football fans would come North to play teams like Sheffield United, Man U or Liverpool and wave wads of cash at the opposing fans. So I can see how he would have been offended by the people of the "Soft South" making sport about being "common."
Needless to say, the song sounds just as great today as when it was released back in the 90s. Youtube has the video of them from Reading in 2011, and I think you should watch it. Pulp should be remembered for more than just this song. But as he says, it's ok if they are, because it's a great song.
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