Common People: A lyrical discussion/dissection

But the problem is, if you have someone who can hear the term "rich girl" without thinking "dislikeable" the song falls apart pretty quickly. - Kate I was exactly like this girl for much of my adult life, and I love this song - I think it's spot on about what I was missing! I think there's a lot to what you said earlier about the gender aspect.

> because I think that choosing bullying is worse than being born clueless.

How is he bullying? All he did with/to her was take her to a supermarket and let her buy him a drink.

(send me upthread if you already covered it...hard to scan it all!)

How is he bullying?

it gets a bit weird when he starts saying all that stuff about the dog imo

yeah, the bit about the dog - the language of violence - i dunno, but i read that as "this is what happened to me" as opposed to "this is what they will do to you, attractive wealthy heiress" - and probably i get that impression based on gender.

it is a little off-kilter that he takes her to a supermarket as opposed to a bar or some sporting event where one would observe "common people" in their natural habitat - i mean, the supermarket, you'd probably find something more approximating a cross-section of classes

I think the assumption is that posh people probably shop at whole foods or waitroses or whatever the UK equivalent is. by supermarket I think he means your absolute bottom-of-the-line save-a-lot or whatever.

so that implies to me - plus the art school detail - that he isn't really of the same class as the "common people" she wants to live like - and she's totally ignorant of the narcissism of small differences that define his world and alienation from the people who he shares an income level but not the same class position

Sometimes enlightenment comes from the most unlikely sources.

And it was actually something in the other thread produced the weirdest "kick in the eye" satori moment of understanding my own privilege and what it means.

Because too often privilege is this term of nastiness that gets thrown around, who has it, who doesn't have it, and if you do have it, you're supposed to feel some kind of guilt and if you don't, you're supposed to feel some kind of resentment. But there was this sudden reminder of "holy fucking shit, I have this... *thing*!"

And it isn't related to money (because I've had periods of relative wealth and poverty) and it isn't related to class (though I think being of a certain class means you're more likely to be exposed to this idea - but as likely to have it crushed out of you) and it's not related to urban/rural/access issues because I had it in spades in rural upstate NY but somehow forgot I had it in London.

It's this sense of *possibility*.

And that's something that doesn't just come from class or wealth (though they help) - it can come from a parent who takes the effort to instill it in you, it can come from a teacher who bothers to believe in you, it can come from a book, from a library, from a community/club (and this is probably why Tories are so keen on privatising libraries and getting rid of community centres), it *can* come from a church or a religion (though a lot of people misuse religion as a power-gaining tool to beat it out of others) - and my objection to this song is that Cocker conflates it solely with wealth/class when it *can* and does come from other places.

It's this idea that there *is* something more to your life than just drink and dance and screw (or just watch football or big brother or mindlessly indulge in consumer culture) - and it doesn't matter if that *something* is poetry or playing the ukulele or pigeon-breeding or local politics. It's the idea that even if you cannot control the strictures of the material aspects of your life, you *can* still control what you do with what is left. (In fact, one of the easiest ways to control other people is to narrow what little else they have until there is nothing left.) It's easier to do when you can control the material aspects of your life - but having control over them is, in fact, no guarantee that you even have this sense.

And people will use all sorts of things to narrow down that sense of possibility - they will try to blanket exclude you from it on account of race in the US and class in the UK, on account of your being female or homosexual *everywhere* (and many more things, all of these things combined in ugly ways.) And yet people can become as trapped by their own resentments as they can by other people trying to narrow them.

And that is perhaps my biggest problem with the narrator of this song is, he seems to be trapped by his own resentments (even as he *has* the possibility represented by art school and tertiary education) - *way* more so than he is trapped by some clueless girl who wants to sleep with him. And yet he takes it out in this ever more shrill and hysterical fashion *on* this girl.

But I don't really care about the song any more. I have suddenly just been given a glimpse of my own privilege at a time in my life when I was feeling really trapped. And this reminder, this sense of *possibility* is something I really wish I could just give to everyone. But I guess the important thing is to stop it being *taken away* from people.

You have completely accidentally given me something really quite profound and necessary, ILX, even if I've made a complete pigs ear of trying to express it. (And I'm sure I will be mocked relentlessly for saying something so sincere, but hey, mockery is a classic tool for trying to narrow others.)

i think you're right about the sense of possibility w/r/t the song - that's kinda what i see it being about. and i feel like the jarvis character somewhat envies the "common people" their lack of possibility (in his eyes) that they just "dance, and drink and screw" - all of which are enjoyable past-times, meanwhile he just seethes with resentment over his perceived (maybe real?) lack of possibilities - though it's obvious he's had more opportunities than the noble savages he's describing. And then there's the Greek girl, who really can do whatever she wants.

it is a little off-kilter that he takes her to a supermarket as opposed to a bar or some sporting event where one would observe "common people" in their natural habitat - i mean, the supermarket, you'd probably find something more approximating a cross-section of classes

― sarahel, Saturday, September 4, 2010 6:23 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think the assumption is that posh people probably shop at whole foods or waitroses or whatever the UK equivalent is. by supermarket I think he means your absolute bottom-of-the-line save-a-lot or whatever.

― shorn_blond.avi (dayo), Saturday, September 4, 2010 6:24 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

he says very clearly that he 'doesn't know' where to start, so starts at the supermarket.

i suppose in theory posh english people shop at waitrose or m&s, but i don't think all of them do, and either way, those are still basically supermarkets. and i think they were less in evidence in the mid-1990s. or sure, i guess there are other suppliers of food -- but no, i think rich people shop at sainsbury's too.

perhaps the very rich have people to do it for them. these days home delivery is not uncommon, but again, dunno about the olden days.

the supermarket in the video doesn't look particularly run down, or particularly upmarket either.

history mayne - are we in agreement that we think the jarvis character isn't actually of the class that the girl wants to experience? it seems like some other posters think that he is.

he probably meant kwik save

the jarvis character isn't actually of the class that the girl wants to experience?

he definitely isn't, but she thinks he is, coz she's foreign/rich

rich people eat out all the time and when they can't do that they just eat their servants amirite

i think i posted way upthread about the difficulty of isolating this song from the rest of the album (probably because i'm American, and it wasn't a hit single here) - so i keep thinking about the song about Deborah and her rather small house with wood chip on the walls - and the way he describes it makes it seem like he grew up above her station. And she is an example of a "common person" that he romanticizes.

I find it difficult to view the whole album as one character. I've always thought of it as exploring different facets of class and sex, and as such each song stands alone though tied to certain themes that run through the whole album.

I think we're going around in circles. I really admired your post, Kate, and I would agree with a lot of what you're saying about the song itself, except I think that makes it a richer experience. Class conflict in whatever form is never straight forward, and I think this song recognizes that, even as it plays up the simplicity and rage on the surface. I guess it comes down to if you think he's actually advocating the bullying or not, or if there's any agency at all in a song full stop.

There's nothing wrong with any approach, of course.

Isn't the narrator - like Jesus Christ himself - somewhere between 'respectable' working- and lower middle class? SReynolds' 'liminal class' whose status anxiety and fractious autodidacticism supposedly makes for good music.

working class and smart enough to go to art school doesn't mean you're not still working class.

totally agree with "liminal class" and also "educated poor"—jarvis has his foot in each of these worlds but doesn't really belong to either. too cultured to put up with being working class, even if that's where he comes from economically.

Isn't the narrator - like Jesus Christ himself - somewhere between 'respectable' working- and lower middle class? SReynolds' 'liminal class' whose status anxiety and fractious autodidacticism supposedly makes for good music.

― nakhchivan, Saturday, September 4, 2010 11:28 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

he does have the same initials

I think that the narrator is of the "Academic/Bohemian" class (which was, in the Big Book Of Class that my brother made me read when he first discovered that there was such a thing as Class, which our parents had kept from us for many years, to the point where this book seemed more mind-blowing and revolutionary than discovering pornography) - which is this supposed non-class to which escapees from other classes can sidestep to. (Though the book pointed out that it is usually more often posh people escaping down to this class rather than the working class escaping up, though this can and does happen, just not with the same frequency.)

I suspect that the Greek girl, as well, would like to be side stepping into this same "Academic/Bohemian" class (they are both at art school after all) via this Authentic Working Class (tm) experience, but he won't let her leave her class any more than she will allow him to leave hers.

In Paul Fussell's book on Class (written about America in the early 80s) he termed that "Class X" - i felt it was a bit of a cop-out based on the structure/ideas he layed out. Like, I feel that even if you belong to some separate Academic/Bohemian class, the attitudes, values, signifiers (even in reacting against them) still come along with you.

That's the book, I just found it on Amazon.

My brother read it like a bible then passed it me, with salient points underlined.

I mean, the book was written before the counterculture got commodified into Hipster so he does have some points about it being an attempted escape from the class system.

There can't possibly be an account of class that considers ~Bohemianism~ as a determinant, it's just an affective disposition. Could apply to a lawyer who reads Huysmans and gets blowjobs from the au pair while his wife does khat nearby or a miner's daughter with an arts degree from an Ex-Polytechnic.

Nor does academia exclude material considerations - as with the clergy they have (or have had) very secure and comfortable working conditions, they've forgone lucrative salaries but their ~ cultural capital ~ insulates them other middling earners, eg they tend to segregate themselves in college towns.

(Reading the "exercises" in the back, I tell you, we racked our brains trying to remember the state of the conductor's clothes at the symphonies we'd been taken to as children, to work out what class we were.)

This book was talking about American class though, so these distinctions don't really apply. I don't know that the UK had a Class X in the way that the US tried to practice.

Isn't the narrator - like Jesus Christ himself - somewhere between 'respectable' working- and lower middle class? SReynolds' 'liminal class' whose status anxiety and fractious autodidacticism supposedly makes for good music.

― nakhchivan, Saturday, September 4, 2010 7:28 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark

mad props for this

Do you agree with Reynolds?

don't answer mayne, it's a trap.

Ha.

on the specific terrain of british song-based pop music of the post-war era... sure, up to a point. he's definitely on to something.

idk, though, the classic (stereotypical but basically true ime) thing about the lower middle class is fear of 'falling', hence excessive attention to status. so i dunno if we really need this 'liminal' thing. it's just that artists tend to be particularly sensitive people, and don't feel at home anywhere -- they're bound to feel liminal, whatever class they come from.

either way, there's lots of good music from the same time and place that is good and which was not produced by these liminal types.

xpost

lol

*sensitive [not necessarily wrt other people]

My favourite version from my favourite Glastonbury of that decade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVBiNu1HIZ0

idk, though, the classic (stereotypical but basically true ime) thing about the lower middle class is fear of 'falling', hence excessive attention to status. so i dunno if we really need this 'liminal' thing. it's just that artists tend to be particularly sensitive people, and don't feel at home anywhere -- they're bound to feel liminal, whatever class they come from.

either way, there's lots of good music from the same time and place that is good and which was not produced by these liminal types.

xpost

lol

― i am legernd (history mayne), Saturday, 4 September 2010 20:23 (48 minutes ago)

That seems about right. It makes sense for the kinda postwar settlement period where people from that background began going to university. They would have seen a lot of the world in their formative years, and probably felt a lot of anxiety about their place in it.

Reynolds also seems to think that a lot of yr faceless techno ppl are from downscale suburban places in outer London and carry on the tradition into his 'Nuum'. No 'Strawberry Fields' from that lot though.

JC definitely doesn't *dislike* this girl in the song by the way. At one point in the 2005 BBC documentary all about Common People he/ the beeb went so far as to actually try tracking her down. He was shown a variety of photos back at St Martin's by one of his lecturers from the time he was there but said he couldn't quite place her face after all those years. That doc was great, it used to be on You Tube but isn't currently.

It's interesting how well Pulp got on with both Oasis and Blur in the britpop era. Noel was keen to big up Jarvis every chance he got, Pulp supported Oasis at their first big arena show (in Sheffield, 95), toured with Blur too etc. They were just about the only common ground between the 2 bands back then; they both loved Jarvis/Pulp!

Funny how"Rum n Coca Cola" never caught on again in the Britpop era like Supersonic's "Gin n Tonic" did.

What class do you reckon SReynolds comes from, in order to find that "liminal class" art so clearly and obviously the most superior?

It's interesting how well Pulp got on with both Oasis and Blur in the britpop era.

Hmmmm...

That's not what I heard, necessarily........

Ha I was thinking that xp. Probably middle class (as in B1 in yr consumer research schema iirc). Not liminal. Or subliminal. Possibly postliminal.

is he saying it created superior music? i always thought the argument was that, during certain socio-economic situations, that liminal class created a wide variety of interesting or pioneering music.

That's more or less the same thing in this case isn't it?

doesn't necessarily make it better than everything else does it?

LOL at 'postliminal' - Simon's class background is complicated, but I'd be speaking out of turn if I discussed it in detail.

Having been a scholarship kid at a posh art college in the '80s, I can identify with Jarvis (and his narrator in the song). If he were American, Jarvis would probably have qualified for all the help I got. You do feel, occasionally and quite rationally, that you're just 'material' for some privileged person's four-year dérive, that it is easy to romanticize poverty when your experience of it is second-hand at best, particularly if you are so rich that your laundry is always done by a service, your food shopping is always done by your parents' housekeeper, and that no disparaging comment you could make about this situation could be too mean, or considered bullying, because a look at the bigger picture demands an examination of the power balance as it really is. I also know that the middle-class person indulging in karaoke poshness also exists, like Lex and Kate say, but I am wary of privileged people whining about class war because it's only called that when poorer people complain about the rich - otherwise, like Warren Buffet says, it's business as usual.

From my own observation, I've noticed it's much easier for an ambitious working-class man with 'sophisticated' taste who has made it to art college or Oxbridge to assimilate than it would be for a woman, who can be sidelined by petty snobbery from posh girls who have no problem with people they fancy, but make no pretense at egalitarianism when dealing with other women. I also know that I have never been chastised for under-appreciating my privilege by someone less privileged than me.

you went to Sarah Lawrence, suzy, is that right?

doesn't necessarily make it better than everything else does it?

― a cankle of rads (Gukbe), Saturday, 4 September 2010 23:05 (5 minutes ago)

No but these liminal fucks get a sampler and a cheap syth and ~think~ they're better. Airs and graces like they own the fucking shop.

*synth*

scythe

Yes, sarahel - on a full scholarship. My mom thought it was hilarious to point out to people that me and my friend C, who grew up skint on a reservation near Hibbing because her mother married a Native American, were the poorest kids in the college (not true, BTW). I mean, I know there's a big difference between me and someone who grew up in a housing project, but my single-parent mom with no college degree was not pinching pennies because she thought it was something fun to do.

JC's order for "rum n coca cola" alludes to calypso tune also about tourism, imperialism, etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_and_Coca-Cola

xp - yeah, Sarah Lawrence had a serious rich kid snob factor reputation from what i remember - i had this sense that it was kinda like the characters in that movie Metropolitan, which i found fascinating, but didn't want to live in that world

What really bothered me is how class was reinforced there, and how those reinforcements were communicated. My experience in high school was pretty egalitarian, in that class was not a determinant in my friendship choices in the same way that shared interests and aesthetic appreciation and of my friends in school who were rich, their parents tended towards making them get jobs to learn the value of money and against things like country clubs. We did have snotty rich kids, but in school and in the Midwest generally, grades and thrift shopping can successfully compete with that, along with the consolation that you're dealing with big fish/small pond types and the situation isn't necessarily 'forever'. But at a place like Sarah Lawrence, the names sound familiar for a reason, because you're surrounded by people with real connections to history, culture, media and celebrity - the initial feeling is OHHHHH SHIIIIIT because, of course, it must never be discussed and it's all anyone can gossip about.

Things that gave me pause were the questions that people from a more stratified background than mine don't even have to ask, such as 'why can't we invite the cleaner to our hall party?' (the answer, 'insurance', was only half the answer IMO) and a sense that it was easier for kids from the projects, or kids of colour, to connect with the trust-funders because the trust-funders could earn congratulations (self-generated or otherwise) for that friendship, whereas the working-to-lower-middles (straight white kids from public schools with regional accents) were kind of seen as unsophisticated and not worth knowing (sometimes by me, but someone with a frizz perm and Van Halen records from my own socioeconomic background - whose family probably had more money than mine - was not my kind of people before I got there).

And that is perhaps my biggest problem with the narrator of this song is, he seems to be trapped by his own resentments (even as he *has* the possibility represented by art school and tertiary education) - *way* more so than he is trapped by some clueless girl who wants to sleep with him. And yet he takes it out in this ever more shrill and hysterical fashion *on* this girl.

I've read this whole thread and just wanted to go back to this because for me this song has never really been about the girl at all, it definitely reads like the narrator-as-Jarvis projecting/laying out his own confused feelings about weatlh/privilege/identity (not so much class I don't think) - the greek girl exists in the song as a sort of jump-off point for an extended rant. I mean you never get any sense of where the encounter goes or where the girl's attitude leads - ok it *starts* in the supermarket but what then? It always struck me as odd that it starts off as a story-type song then goes off on this tangent. This could well be intentional on Jarvis' part, the first verse could be a red herring - in which case it's quite a clever way to go about it; however if he actually was hoping to merely put forward a convincing case for 'Rich people slumming it are bad' then I think the song fails.

I agree with this - the primary conflict in the song is the kind of love-hate civil class war among the two visions of the working class, into the middle of which steps the clueless rich girl who doesn't even see that there's a difference. Nothing more annoying than someone ignorant telling you what you're like, and not only getting it wrong but telling you you're the same as your bitterest enemy. One can imagine how irritating locals must find it when everyone's got a glib view on Israel or Northern Ireland or wherever.

Nothing more annoying than someone ignorant telling you what you're like, and not only getting it wrong but telling you you're the same as your bitterest enemy.

Ha ha, trust me, I know what this is like - it's happened quite a few times directed at me on this thread and the other one.

And yeah, it is just a weird song, the way it starts as a story and ends as a rant and I don't know that those two halves hang together particularly well.