I feel like I will never go thru a hardcore drug addiction phaseWill never live in a shithole crack den meth lab apartmentDo drugs that involve needleshave sex in a graveyardcommunicate with spiritsHave my bros crucify me just 4 shitsSell my body for drugsContract some sort of infection/STD/terminal illnessJust dark ass shitFeel like I'm always gonna be kinda mnstrmand I won't ever be that dark
Just dark ass shit
Feel like I'm always gonna be kinda mnstrmand I won't ever be that dark
― nakhchivan, Wednesday, 20 October 2010 23:23 (thirteen years ago) link
that 'story of Common People' doc is on You Tube it appears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltodth1h1Oo
― piscesx, Thursday, 11 November 2010 12:49 (thirteen years ago) link
terrific blog by Dorian: http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/the-rage-of-common-people/
― ithappens, Thursday, 11 November 2010 12:58 (thirteen years ago) link
Has anyone read Owen Hatherley's book "Uncommon"?
― Gukbe, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 18:14 (twelve years ago) link
wow, somehow i completely missed this thread the first time around. i've been reading for 20 minutes and have barely scratched the surface.
it's amazing to me that so many people are new to this song!
to my mind it's one of the best pop (rock?) songs of the 90s. maybe the best? at any rate it's one of the few pop (rock?) songs in recent memory where the snarling, desperate, animal energy of the vocals actually has a convincing basis in the lyrics. i just don't believe singers when they get all angry or excited usually, cause what are they singing about? who knows.
also i just want to take this opportunity to mention that an unremarkable baseball card from a particular year - a card that doesn't command any sort of price above and beyond the rest of them - is called a "common". i always felt sorry for the players pictured on them.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 19:34 (twelve years ago) link
lol @ "recent memory" being.... 15 YEARS AGO
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 19:35 (twelve years ago) link
Hatherley wrote a pretty basic piece for The Guardian about their festival performances though really it's just a primer for the book.
― Gukbe, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 20:56 (twelve years ago) link
pulp were just ridiculously good at primavera. forget suede or blur - this is the really essential britpop reunion you need to be at.
― I'm A Genius, Too! (Jamie_ATP), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 21:03 (twelve years ago) link
I wouldn't agree with a lot of the above. The song doesn't set our narrator "above" the Greek girl. By the end of the song our narrator has reached the same position that she holds at the start, claiming to want to live with common people "like you", except before the song's end he's stooped lower than she has.
He catches her eye *because* she studies "sculpture" - that's what he is to her, an object of some aesthetic interest, but without, ultimately, any sexual interest. Not "poor" enough, nor (therefore) "cool" enough, or so he'd like to think.
The rejection sends our narrator off on his rant, which is more about his *own* fascination / revulsion for the "common people" than it is about hers (if indeed she has such strong feelings).
By the point at which he's calling the "common people" as witnesses to the Greek girl's failings, he's not only romanticising them and aestheticising them, as she does, he wants them to sing along with his own condemnations. Which is spiteful, cheap, and nasty - but these qualities are, perhaps, not uncommon.
― Neil Willett, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 23:05 (twelve years ago) link
I just hope that the guy got a chance to bone down after he was done freaking the fuck out.
― the deee-lite psa (kkvgz), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 23:50 (twelve years ago) link
pulp were just ridiculously good at primavera.
this.
― his name was rony. rony from my cage. (stevie), Thursday, 16 June 2011 19:41 (twelve years ago) link
I wouldn't agree with a lot of the above. The song doesn't set our narrator "above" the Greek girl. By the end of the song our narrator has reached the same position that she holds at the start, claiming to want to live with common people "like you", except before the song's end he's stooped lower than she has.He catches her eye *because* she studies "sculpture" - that's what he is to her, an object of some aesthetic interest, but without, ultimately, any sexual interest. Not "poor" enough, nor (therefore) "cool" enough, or so he'd like to think.The rejection sends our narrator off on his rant, which is more about his *own* fascination / revulsion for the "common people" than it is about hers (if indeed she has such strong feelings).By the point at which he's calling the "common people" as witnesses to the Greek girl's failings, he's not only romanticising them and aestheticising them, as she does, he wants them to sing along with his own condemnations. Which is spiteful, cheap, and nasty - but these qualities are, perhaps, not uncommon.― Neil Willett, Thursday, June 16, 2011 12:05 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark
― Neil Willett, Thursday, June 16, 2011 12:05 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark
more interesting than owen hatherley's reading at any rate -- i don't think we should identify with the narrator rly.
idk, im middle-class, i've never pretended to be otherwise, 'common people' is directed against people who do; so i guess i can go on my merry way? i don't mind people liking this pretty mediocre piece of music. never liked the 'deliberately tinselly' vibe of 95-era pulp.
― underrated mountain goats bootlegs I have owned (history mayne), Thursday, 16 June 2011 20:34 (twelve years ago) link
i don't mind people liking this pretty mediocre piece of music.
people everywhere breathe a sigh of relief
― And the piano, it sounds like a carnivore (contenderizer), Thursday, 16 June 2011 21:05 (twelve years ago) link
it's so refreshing when history mayne just agrees to disagree rather than call his opponents fucking idiots.
― sarahel, Thursday, 16 June 2011 22:33 (twelve years ago) link
well, people i like like pulp
and i liked pulp before they did
― underrated mountain goats bootlegs I have owned (history mayne), Thursday, 16 June 2011 22:36 (twelve years ago) link
I have a cookie here for you.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 16 June 2011 23:03 (twelve years ago) link
sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes, it's good to be american
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Thursday, 16 June 2011 23:07 (twelve years ago) link
Someone should compile these interpretations and hand them to Jarvis.
Particularly:
.. which is wrongy, but funny too.
― Mark G, Friday, 17 June 2011 09:18 (twelve years ago) link
wow, just realised all these years I've been hearing this great line " the tube station grease will come out in the bath." which actually erm sort of isn't in the song.
― sometimes all it takes is a healthy dose of continental indiepop (tomofthenest), Friday, 17 June 2011 10:12 (twelve years ago) link
this is a really great song
― van ingalls wilder (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 22 July 2011 23:02 (twelve years ago) link
this thread's so bizarre. had no idea there were ppl out there who were actually offended by this song.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, 24 July 2011 00:25 (twelve years ago) link
As good a place as any to ask:
Like a dog lying in a corner,they'll bite you and never warn you.Look out.They'll tear your insides out.
Does anyone know what the backing vocals are here?
― Andrew Farrell, Sunday, 18 January 2015 21:09 (nine years ago) link
http://www.pulpwiki.net/Pulp/AskDrPulp
Jan/Feb 96
Steve Bayliss is from Widnes and he's interested to find out just what Jarvis is going on about in Common People in the "Dog lying in a corner" bit. Is it too obscene to publish, he asks?
The Doc says, whilst recording the acoustic guitar track, Jarvis' headphone level was too loud, and he was asking for it to be turned down. The "Dog lying in the corner" bit is Jarvis wittering on as only he can, while the levels were corrected. The group thought it sounded good anyway and kept it.
― Eyeball Kicks, Monday, 19 January 2015 17:29 (nine years ago) link
Thank you!
― Andrew Farrell, Tuesday, 20 January 2015 14:52 (nine years ago) link
http://www.factmag.com/2015/05/07/pulp-common-people-greek-girl-identity/
Please let this turn out to be the right person it would just be too perfect a punchline.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 7 May 2015 14:14 (eight years ago) link
Excellent.
― Cram Session in Goniometry (Tom D.), Thursday, 7 May 2015 14:27 (eight years ago) link
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/12/greek-finance-minister-responds-claim-wife-inspiration-pulp-common-people
― anthony braxton diamond geezer (anagram), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 08:02 (eight years ago) link
good song
― thoughts you made second posts about (darraghmac), Monday, 25 May 2015 16:23 (eight years ago) link
Hour-long BBC 10th anniversary doc The Story Of Common People, from 2006 is now on the iPlayer. Hasn't been shown much in the last decade. It's really good.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074fbj#credits
― piscesx, Thursday, 11 October 2018 10:15 (five years ago) link
nice, thanks
― niels, Friday, 12 October 2018 14:54 (five years ago) link