Jarvis Cocker is on a quest to find woman who inspired Pulp’s ‘Common People’
nme.comJarvis Cocker says it’s still a “mystery” who he wrote Pulp hit ‘Common People’ about, but is determined to find out.In the iconic 1995 song’s opening lines, Cocker sings of a woman who “came from Greece [and] had a thirst for knowledge,” studying sculpture at London’s St.
Martin’s College.Despite the song’s success – it was named NME‘s Best Song Of The ’90s – Cocker has revealed that he has no memory of the identity of the person who inspired the song.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life (via The Mirror), Cocker addressed claims that the inspiration was Danae Stratou, a Greek woman who attended St Martin’s at the same time as Jarvis, but confirmed that “it wasn’t her because she had blonde hair and the girl had dark hair.”Of the origin of the song, Cocker said: “We went to the pub and she just came out with that she wanted to live in Hackney with common people.“In 2011 we played at St Martin’s and someone showed me a picture on their phone and said, ‘Is that the girl you wrote the song about?’ I went, ‘Yeah, I think it is’” he remembered.“Unfortunately, I didn’t ask them for the picture and I can’t remember who showed it to me so it’s still a mystery.”Back in 2015, Deborah Bone, the inspiration behind Pulp‘s 1995 hit ‘Disco 2000’, died at the age of 51.
The mental health worker had been battling multiple myeloma – a type of bone marrow cancer.Born in Sheffield, Bone and Cocker were close growing up and their friendship inspired the band’s famous track, which begins with the lyric: “Well we were born within an hour of each other.
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