Pulp's alt-classic "Common People" has always left people wondering if frontman Jarvis Cocker was inspired by true events when he wrote the tale of a girl who came from money that asked him to teach her about life outside the bourgeois. A Greek newspaper says that the answer is yes, and that the woman is Danae Stratou, the wife of Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.
The Athens Voice reveals that Stratou was a student at the St. Martins School of Art and Design from 1983-'88, around the same time that Cocker was enrolled in film studies at the university. She's listed as being the daughter of a wealthy Greek industrialist, which would explain the line "she told me that her dad was loaded." The rest of the story adds up quickly: "She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge / She studied sculpture at St. Martin's College."
Cocker hasn't responded to the claims yet but it's unlikely that he will. Although the clues all point to Stratou in retrospect, he probably never meant for the woman's identity to be revealed, nor would he have expected her to be married to one of the most powerful men in Greece, therefore making the story easier to piece together.
We know that the tabloids will be dying to know if the bit about "I want to sleep with the common people, like you," is true.
"Common People" is one of the best known songs from Pulp, and was an even bigger smash in the band's homeland of the UK. It was ranked the best song of the '90s by readers of NME. Statou is the second wife of Varoufakis, who has gathered more media attention recently as the master-of-money for the new anti-austerity party Syriza in cash-strapped Greece.
