I love this song whichever angle you approach it from. The lyrics are clever and quirky, it has a great tune, the music builds brilliantly throughout and even the video is pretty good. In fact the album it's from, Different Class (1995) is an excellent all round effort.
Apparently the song is Jarvis Cocker's take on those who attribute glamour to poverty. Well, living in the East End of London you come across a fair bit of that. Wierdly this is a phenomenon amongst Christians of a certain sort, too, who get competitive about how 'poor' the area is where they live. There is definitely some theological reflection that can be done with this song and concepts of 'incarnational mission'. Ultimately, of more concern to the person who takes Jesus seriously, must be the haunting words 'You'll never live like common people, you'll never do what common people do, you'll never fail like common people, you'll never watch your life slide out of view, and dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do.' Now how do you respond to that?
an oblique sense of gratitude...
18 hours ago