The class quiz
More
In the chorus from ‘Common People’ by pop group Pulp, on the 1995 Different Class album, lead singer Jarvis Cocker (b. 1963) satirises a rich Greek art student’s desire to ‘go slumming’, a form of cultural tourism in which the rich explore the lives of the poor, safe in the knowledge that their wealth protects them from misadventure. The song’s descriptions of squalor and hopelessness – ‘You'll never watch your life slide out of view, and dance and drink and screw/Because there's nothing else to do’ – are a reminder that poverty is still with us. And in a world in which a ubiquitous pop sensibility has replaced local working-class cultural outlets such as music hall, the pop music industry now offers one of the best chances for upward social mobility. This was perhaps best exemplified by John Lennon, one of the Beatles, whose first major solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band features the classic song ‘Working Class Hero’ (1970).
