The 1995 Britpop staple “Common People” by Pulp was only a minor hit state-side but wildly popular in their native England, and it’s not hard to see why: here in America we still cling tenaciously to the myth that we are classless society–or at least, that we enjoy fluid class mobility–this, despite the mountains of research and evidence indicating that the number one predictor of what income-tax bracket one will end up in is which one they were born into. Rich kids, due to their strong support networks of inherited generational wealth, are almost never allowed to go broke, no matter how many of their various business enterprises fail (just look at Jeff Bezos–bailed out by his rich parents when Amazon almost went bankrupt its first year–not to mention that ultimate failson Trump himself, whose every single business enterprise has failed miserably, yet keeps on being rewarded for it). Poor kids, due to multi-generational poverty traps and widespread structural inequality, are almost never allowed to succeed, no matter how hard they sincerely try. Middle-class people are in constant danger of slipping into poverty, and usually only manage to claw their way back up into the middle-class at best, maybe occasionally the upper-middle-class. The exceptions only prove the rule.

Yet still we cling to the fantasy that (in the immortal words of John Steinbeck) there are no poor people in America, only temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Hence, it simply would not occur to almost anyone in the U.S. to write a song critiquing class-tourism–let alone listen to one–because almost no one on this side of the pond is willing to admit they belong to a social class in the first place.

England by contrast entertains no such illusions. Their class system is rigid, ancient, and blatant. People living under the Union Jack can even tell exactly what economic class you were born into based on your accent alone. (There is a reason why George Bernard Shaw said that it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without causing another Englishman to despise him.) People can shift to other income-tax brackets only with great difficulty–but then, not with any greater difficulty than Americans can–and in any case, most Brits are fully cognizant that any examples of the same are very much the exceptions, not the rule. Waves of English settlers after all migrated to North America centuries ago attempting to escape the British class system; yet though the American Revolution was successful at abolishing noble title, it was not at eliminating classes altogether, which have persisted down to the present day despite our mass refusal to acknowledge them. We remain a long, long ways away from “And all that believed were together, and had all things common” (not to mention “And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift…”).

This was all a long preamble to how only an English band like Pulp could have written “Common People,” and why it only could have become a smash-hit in England. The song narrates how the singer once met a Greek foreign student studying sculpture at St. Martin’s College in London. While out for drinks one night, she mentions that “Dad is loaded,” to which he only says “in that case, I’ll have a rum and Coca-Cola,” at which she then declares her intent to engage in a little bit of class-tourism: “I wanna live like common people/I wanna do whatever common people/wanna sleep with common people/I wanna sleep with common people like you…”

In America, a Pop song with this sort of lyrical opener would be about a memorable tryst with a beautiful women wildly out of his league; the point of the song would be to brag about bagging a rich girl. And indeed, that’s the direction this song initially appears to moving in upon first listen. But it starts to swing in a wildly different direction while still in the first verse, when the narrator takes this rich girl to the supermarket. “Now pretend you got no money,” he instructs her. She just laughs and says, “Oh, you’re so funny,” to which he rejoins, “Yeah? Well I can’t see anyone else here smiling….”

It is during the anthemic chorus that the singer really starts to lay hard into the rich girl, bitterly assuring her that “you’ll never live like common people/you’ll never do whatever common people do/never fail like common people/never see you life slide out of view…” Whatever chances the narrator had at scoring with a rich girl are thrown away by him angrily, as all of his long-simmering class resentment comes bubbling to the surface. This girl has been condescending to him, talking down to him, patronizing him; and though he still feels his impoverished background keenly, he still has enough self-respect to refuse to put up with it.

The third verse was cut from both the radio edit and the music video, but is present on the original album and all ensuing Great Hits compilations: “Like a dog lying in a corner/they’ll bite you and never warn ya/Look out!/They’ll tear your insides out…” he states with an ominous whisper. His class resentment is now building up into bona fide rage. But it is in the crescendo climax of the verse that he moves on from mere resentment into full-on defense of the brilliant souls of his fellow working poor: “You are amazed that they exist/And they burn so bright/Whilst you can only wonder why!”

Here he is no longer begging for some basic human decency from the wealthy towards the poor, but turns the tables entirely, angrily demanding she open her eyes and realize how much better than her the poor truly are! And he has good, divine reason to: In scriptural terms, these are the ones who have passed through tribulation; these are the meek who really shall inherit the earth; those who have been tried like silver; the last who shall be made first, the humble who shall be exalted; the weak things of the earth that shall thrash the nations. They are enlivened with the Light of Christ, and like Lazarus will be at rest in Abraham’s bosum while the rich look up from hell.

These are the migrant workers harvesting our food, the immigrants and refugees, the custodians and janitors, the garbage men and college adjuncts, the cashiers and line-cooks, the homeless vets and the laid-off workers, the cast-off and despised; recall how blisteringly Christ meant it when he told the religious hypocrites that the prostitutes and the publicans shall enter the kingdom of heaven before you. To quote Hamlet, “I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling.” This is the ethos of not only “Common People,” but of the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ; and between the two sides of the pond, only an Englishman had the honesty to write it.