Tom writes:
The principal years of my musical upbringing were from 1989 (when I started Secondary School) to 1999 (when I moved to the US for a year as a university student). This means that I am undeniably a Brit Pop kid (and I acknowledge the problems with both the term and the culture that often went along with it). I’ve also previously mentioned that halfway during this decade of musical
inculturation I moved to Pilton in Somerset, home of the Glastonbury Festival. It was at the Festival in 1995 (my first) that Britpop obtained one of its most memorable moments. The big deal was supposed to be The Stone Roses but they pulled out at the last minute. So into the breach stepped Pulp. There was much nervousness about this, including from the organisers. In the end, though,
they stole the show.
It helped that at that point the band were riding the wave of the success of the single “Common People”, the lead single from the album A Different Class, which was released later in the year and probably Britpop’s greatest anthem. “Common People” takes the LP’s over-arching themes of class and wealth from the viewpoint of those who are working class and live in poverty, and ramps them up to 11 on a scale of 10. With wit, charm, intelligence, and no little amount of scathing invective, Cocker and the rest of the band take aim at those with wealth who choose to “slum” with those less fortunate themselves, all the while knowing that “if you called your dad he could stop it all”. The song is clear – living alongside those in poverty, even joining in with their lives, while knowing you can escape at any moment, is neither appropriate, nor a way to make friends amongst those whose social and financial problems cannot so easily be solved.
As Cocker sings in the album version of the song (but, interestingly, not the radio-played 7” single edit that’s also used for the video):
Like a dog lying in a corner
They will bite you and never warn you
Look out, they’ll tear your insides out
‘Cause everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks it’s all such a laugh
Yeah and the chip stains and grease
Will come out in the bath
You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning and control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And they burn so bright
Whilst you can only wonder why
As I listen to these words today, I find myself wondering about how the Church lives out its calling to be “Church at the Margins”. Too often, I think, the Church can fall into the trap of tourism. Too often we look to “walk alongside” those whom society has treated unjustly and pushed to one side, all the while knowing that we can escape when we choose. We try and be a “Church for the Margins” or a “Church currently on the Margins”. I think, for example, of the challenges we sometimes set ourselves to live on a limited amount for a week or other period of time – no doubt well-meant, possibly even eye-opening and view-point changing, but nowhere near the true experience of those who are forced to live on such limited resources every day of their lives, such as those the Hope@Trinity project work with in Clacton-on-Sea where I’m Superintendent.
As a Christian, as someone who seeks to work for justice in the world, as someone who is undeniably middle-class and always at risk of forgetting the maxim, “Nothing about us, without us, is for us”, I am grateful to the ongoing challenge that “Common People” offers. I know that I’m one of those Cocker could easily be targeting in his lyrics. As the Church, as we rightly seek to focus on the justice, dignity and solidarity that God calls us to, as we seek to properly offer new places for new people and be a Church on the margins, we must be careful never to lose sight of the risk that we might fall into the trap of spiritual tourism.
Find out more about Pulp at https://www.pulpwiki.net/
The Friday Fix 