Where It Started…  Sam

Must have been early May 1995 - I was 10. I normally walked to school, but for whatever reason would occasionally get a lift off my mum on her way to work. This particular morning Radio 1 was on as usual, and they played 'Common People', I think maybe its first play, or at least it hadn't been released yet. I remember distinctly my mind being blown that someone on the radio was saying 'I want to sleep with common people'. 'Sleep with' was something rude that I knew from watching Blackadder and Red Dwarf, it was something for after the watershed, not on the way to school.

And that was it, I was transfixed - taped it off the radio as soon as I could, convinced my dad to see Pulp at the Radio 1 roadshow performance on Broad Street in Birmingham (where Jarvis slipped over in the rain and finished the song flat on his back), and when I got Different Class for christmas with the pull-out covers made a ritual of rotating each different cover each day for far too long. I'm 40 now, still as entranced, and so glad they're back.

Page last modified on June 05, 2025, at 08:20 AM