Class Tourism: Tales of Common People.
The year is 1995 and Pulp have just released the biggest song of their career. ‘Common People’
As well as being a stalwart of the Britpop genre, it also tackled Class Tourism. Within the song the main character who we assume to be Jarvis Cocker. Meets a girl. This girl seems fascinated with the idea of working class life within Britain at the time. Shown within the lyrics ‘I wanna live like common peopleI wanna do whatever common people do’The girl seemed transfixed on the idea of being one of the ‘Common People’ it was a fantasy for her, the idea of it seemed like an enjoyable experience. However that is the reality of life for some people and Jarvis tackles this idea later in the song.
‘Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right'
Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad he could stop it all, yeah’
He implies that no matter how hard this girl tried that she could never truly be one of the ‘Common People’ because when things got really bad she had an escape due to her rich nature. Due to her wealthy background.
The song highlights Jarvis’s annoyance with the girl because she saw working class life as a fun idea. A weird fantasy. When really that was reality for the vast majority of people and also highlighted their feelings of people like this.
‘Everybody hates a tourist especially one who thinks it’s all just a laugh’ is a key line of the song, the girl seems to think the idea of becoming working class is amusing but those who actually live it can see through her.
‘Common People’ was Pulps biggest hit and arguably the greatest Britpop song of them all. The songs menacing lyrics were wrapped up in a brilliant synth heavy beat and hooked around a catchy chorus. It still sounds modern and timeless. 26 years on.
The song seems to sum up peoples fascination with the working class, and class tourism is a real thing. It’s still prevalent today. Pulp managed to summarise the British class system in a song. And to me that’s quite an extraordinary thing. I can only only name a few songs that have had such a cultural impact on British society. A truly amazing piece of music.
In 1995 Pulp, were the 'super subs' at Glastonbury and replaced The Stone Roses after John Squire broke his collarbone, it was a career-defining set for the band and more than filled the void left by The Stone Roses, ending the set was a spine tingling performance of Common People which you can watch here.