Common People by Pulp

Common People Pulp Song Lyrics from Allspirit

I heard a new version of this on the radio the other day, and for once I actually got all the words. Unlike Jarvis' screechy danceable protest, this version was by an uncommon person with a very comprehensible voice, singing it as someone who wasn't a common person, who knew about trying to be one of the Common People.

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


Indeed. But you wonder whether Jarvis would prefer people who never tried to find out what it was like to be a common person. Which would he approve of less? Not that it matters now that HE is rich.

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
and then dance and drink and screw
because there's nothing else to do


It really sounds like he doesn't think anyone should consider the life of the Common People. Or else that if you're born as one of them, you've got something that nobody else can fake.

And that is true, because the truly Common People have nothing left to lose. They have only one way to go, and that is UP.

Whereas if you were born rich, you have only one way to go, and that is DOWN.

It makes me want to get to know Fidel Castro.

'cos everybody hates a tourist
especially one who thinks
it's all such a laugh


Is this so true or what? Unless you're one of those who stands to earn money from them, a tourist is always a tourist. They can leave. You can be the better kind of tourist, whatever you go through in your life, being sensitive and understanding of what is around you. But if you can always leave, they know it. Unless you are stuck there, like them, you can never truly know what it is like to be them.

And when you finally do know, it will hurt for a very long time. And you'll Look Back in Anger.