“Common People“ (25) is a song by English band Pulp, released in May 1995 as the lead single off their fifth studio album Different Class. It reached No. 2 in the Uk, becoming a defining track of the Britpop movement as well as Pulp’s signature song. In 2014, BBC Radio 6 Song listeners voted it their favourite Britpop song in an online poll. In a 2015 Rolling Stone readers’ poll it was voted the greatest Britpop song. The accompanying music video featured an appearance from actress Sadie Frost and a dance routine improvised by Cocker on the day of shooting. The video also features a homage to the “Eleanor Rigby” sequence in the animated film Yellow Submarine, with everyday people stuck in repeating loops lasting less than a second. The club scenes were filmed inside Stepney’s Nightclub on Commercial Road in the East End. The nightclub still had its original décor, including a 1970s dance floor, and was described as a “cultural icon” when under threat of demolition in 2007.
In 2004, Ben Folds produced a cover version of “Common People” for the William Shatner album Has Been that brought the song to a new audience outside of the British Isles. This version begins with an electronic keyboard Britpop or disco sound, but quickly moves into a drum kit and guitar-heavy indie rock style. Reviewers were pleasantly surprised by Shatner’s spoken-word presentation of Cocker’s tirade against class tourism as Shatner’s previous work had been widely mocked by reviewers. Folds abruptly replaces Shatner’s voice with that of singer Joe Jackson, and then alternates and blends the two into a duet, bringing along a large chorus of young voices on the line “sing along with the common people”, which finally replace Shatner and Jackson’s vocals in the song’s concluding crescendo.
American rock band My Chemical Romance covered “Common People” multiple times on stage during their 2010-11 World Contamination Tour. In an interview, lead singer Gerard Way explained that the song was important to him growing up because it “speaks to regular people.”
In February 2019, the news website Joe.ie released a speech sampled parody version of the song with the British Brexit supporting MP Jacob Rees-Mogg supposedly singing “I want to leave the Common Market” instead of “I want to sleep with common people”.
Folk singer Lucy Ward has produced an excellent version of the song. She slows down speed of the song and accompanies herself on the guitar.
