Common People is better than Country House - but how?

I should also say that "Common People" had a great mock-epic quality.

In any case, it's simply a better song, no matter how one chooses to slice it.

On a musical level "Common People" triumphs because it bases itself on a template (early Roxy) which in 1995 was less careworn and overused than the Ray Davies/Madness template on which "Country House" is based. The Moroder pulse of "Common People" betrays some regard for Futurism; add to that the fact that the song has three different levels of intensity to which it gradually builds up - and then a fourth, quite unexpectedly, near the end ("you will NEVER" at which latter word the band sound like the National Grid has suddenly been switched on), and it compares favourably with the mono-dimensional trot of "Country House."

Crucially it is those moments of The Great Escape where Blur choose to embrace failed Futurist hyperreality - "He Thought Of Cars," "Yuko And Hiro" - that they are most powerful emotionally.

I may be quite bias, because the idea of coming from a pretty shit background and then pulling some girl from a wealthly background is a lot more familiar to me, and I think it both amusing and true. I think people find it harder to connect in that way to Country House, which will be more remembered as a record that was sold to number 1 through cheap CDs.

(x-post)

which people tho?

marcello probably nails it, and makes the difference seem more obvious. but we know too much about the characters writing and performing the songs. and i couldn't help but wonder what someone would think hearing the two for the first time today and knowing nothing about either band.

Well the "Common People" CD single was £1.99 in the first week of release, but even that couldn't get it past the immovable Singing Squaddies at number one. Whereas EMI with its big marketing budgets and bigger loss-margin flexibility had no problem with getting "Country House" to number one ahead of the more (at the time) cash-strapped Creation vis-a-vis "Roll With It."

Exactly. Like I said. Just another Blur song.

(as well as what was said above)

And let's get down to the fundamentals - it's got a fantastic melody, while CH is irritating and trite.

But "Country House" sounded like it was trying to make me join in. That's a very bad start. And what it was asking me to join in with seemed to be some sort of game, exercise, whatever without an ounce of love, passion or dedication.

Whereas "Common People" screamed out from the TV at me and made me want to tell everyone about it.

[xpost: god yes better melody]

Country House on the other hand has got that rumpa-rumpa tuba smarties rythm to it, it seemed too much like "here's the SINGLE! one for the mums to dance to at the Wedding Reception!", it also showcased the side of Parklife that was utterly annoying and twatish in even greater glory, the video was a big pile of malnourished dog skat, the Vs. Oasis thing was stupid and tedious, Keith Allen, The Groucho, Fat fucking Les, Cool Brittania, Retaking The Flag and for fucks sake Damon "HE" doesn't live in a very big house in the country - YOU DO.

Ach. Maybe that's the root of it - the Pulp song is inclusive, a dancefloor full of people rumbopping to it is a room of people revelling in their common-ness, cheap thrills, teenage kicks. The story is believable, well observed and witty and deep down has a point to make. The Blur song on the other hand . . . . look, Damon, we KNOW that rich city people get second homes. The fucking CHEEK of that band at the time - "hey kids, this is what Engerland is really like! Oi! Oi!" "Sheiit, Damon, I've never looked out of my fucking window or read a newspaper, you know what I've been living in a bubble all my fucking life and Hallelujah you've opened the Doors of Perception on Merrie England for me!".

Hateful, awful, stupid record.

I don't think this should necessarily get in the way of enjoyment of the song--it's an us vs. them anthem, and all us vs. them anthems are diminuitive and patronizing in some way. I just don't think it's right for people to champion "Common People" but fault "Country House" for pretty much the exact same reasons.

No, one of them. He wasn't saying he was one of the common people. He was saying She thought he was...

Like a dog lying in a corner
they will bite you and never warn you
Look out
they'll tear your insides out
'cos everybody hates a tourist
especially one who thinks
it's all such a laugh
yeah and the chip stain's grease
will come out in the bath
You will never understand
how it feels to live your life
with no meaning or control
and with nowhere else to go
You are amazed that they exist
and they burn so bright
whilst you can only wonder why

I quite like Country House.

Pulp's Glamour wasn't about cigarette holders etc. It was always about Queen Mum ashtrays, paisley carpets and Friday night tarts. I think it became more prevailent as the Different Class cheques started rolling in as they were covering their backs after being the band who for years were all about a quite un-glamourous and localised view of a certain city. When the band went huge I think they did adopt Ironic Glamour rather than Glamour.

Blur were always suspect, and as such their social-commentary stuff seemed a lot more po-faced and silly - they were keeping up the Cockerny Lads thing in their music when they were hanging with Hirst, and whats more those who weren't the myriad of 6th form girls who bought the albums could vaguely remember them being some shoegaze footnote. There was a sense of opportunism about them, and the pretty boy faces and cheeky grins didn't help. Hmm, not explaining myself well here so, hey.

All this aside, I'll still go with the point that Country House is a rumpy-pumpy tuba hoedown and Common People has the neccesary adrenaline.

Therein lies the difference and therein - Cocker's lyrics always had an undercurrent of anger, disaffection and frustration to them, whether sexual, social or whatever. Albarn's always seemed to be saying little more than "ooh isn't this a frightful pickle". His near-refusal to write first person just reinforced it. Jarvis wasn't afraid to get inside his main character's point of view, usually with spot-on success. His characters made often embarrasing admissions, made mistakes, unforseen things happened to them. Damon's were pure Charactures who were perfect in their story and self, who rarely evolved during the song (the one exception I can think of is Tracy Jacks, and thats hardly Pulitzer character development). And whilst Damon's was a world of disaffected businessmen, quango's, mods and cockles with the odd bit of existentialist angst thrown in (hardly ever in the same track), Jarvis's was a world of teenager's frightened sexuality, penniless students, dirty old men and confused housewives.

Hang on, I don't actually like or care about either band . . . I'm off the pub.

"Country House" was their tongue-in-cheek tribute to Dave Balfe, the label head with whom they'd had a years-long love hate relationship. And that's what made it an unspectacular Blur single -- did we really have to hear "character" song #2894? What differentiated this one from all the others Blur recorded?

If he's not a common person, then why is it that he understands "what it means to live your life with no meaning or control and with nowhere else to go" (and why was she slumming with him in the first place?)

'Common People' made fun of all the (sometimes wide-eyed) European foreigners that had started to arrive in greater numbers to live and study in the UK in the early 90s..it definitely had a xenophobic, reactionary element to it...

Exactly. "Everybody hates a tourist"? God forbid.

Common People is so much smarter than Country House.

I'll agree to this, and that's the difference between the two songs--because "Common People" is so much more enjoyable executed that "Country House," people overlook the fact that it's really the same type of song.

hmmm, not sure. if it wasn't for the 'she came from Greece' intro, would we even know this?

If you ever go down Trinidad
They make you feel so very glad
Calypso sing and make up rhyme
Guarantee you one real good fine time

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

Since the Yankee come to Trinidad
They got the young girls all goin' mad
Young girls say they treat 'em nice
Make Trinidad like paradise

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

From Chicachicaree to Mona's Isle
Native girls all dance and smile
Help soldier celebrate his leave
Make every day like New Year's Eve

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

In old Trinidad, I also fear
The situation is mighty queer
Like the Yankee girl, the native swoon
When she hear der Bingo croon

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

Out on Manzanella Beach
G.I. romance with native peach
All night long, make tropic love
Next day, sit in hot sun and cool off

Drinkin' rum and Coca-Cola
Go down Point Koomahnah
Both mother and daughter
Workin' for the Yankee dollar

"Common People" is OK, with possibly even stronger lyrics and a great video (like "Country House"), but like all other three chord songs it has its limitations. Pulp did better stuff both earlier and later.

Although "you will NEVER understand" sounds accusatory, it's not wholly an expression of class anger & recrimination. It's also sympathetic, regretful, regarding the inaccessibility of the object of desire in question. It romanticises "the common" into the uncommon, in the knowledge that in doing so it recapitulates the girl's "error". The "common people" both attract and repulse BOTH the characters in the song.

Also it is significantly better than "Country House".

But I think Lynskey gets it on the rhythmic basis.

Common People has that throbbing, insistent disco beat, while Country House is all half-stymied oompah.

Oompah when done well can be big and brash and wonderful (Sunday Sunday and much of the rest of early Blur) but on Country House it just sounds disjointed. Which I think was the point, conceptually, but still. It makes it less enjoyable musically.