Jarvis Cocker is still on a mission to track down the real-life woman who inspired Pulp’s 1995 hit, Common People, with a throwaway comment at the pub.
The singer, 58, was inspired to write the lyrics after a mystery woman commented that she wanted to live in Hackney ‘with common people’.
However, Jarvis has been unable to remember who it was that actually dropped the comment which was made into such an iconic track.
Common People opens with a line talking about a woman who ‘came from Greece [and] had a thirst for knowledge,’ and studied sculpture at ’s St. Martin’s College.
Jarvis denied reports that the woman in question was Dana Stratou, who attended St Martin’s at the same time as him, telling BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life (via ): ‘It wasn’t her because she had blonde hair and the girl had dark hair.’
He explained: ‘We went to the pub and [the mystery woman] 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.”
‘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.’
Many of the band’s hits had been inspired by real-life encounters, including Pulp’s 1995 hit Disco 2000, which was based on Deborah Bone.
She had been a close friend of the singer, before her death at 51 from bone marrow cancer in 2015.
Both Deborah and Jarvis had been born in Sheffield and she had been immortalised in the lyrics: ‘Well we were born within an hour of each other.
‘Our mothers said we could be sister and brother. Your name was Deborah. Deborah. It never suited ya.’
