#64, "Common People," William Shatner (2004)

150 Favorite Songs: #64, "Common People," William Shatner (2004)

I said in the introduction post to this series that it was about the songs themselves, not the specific recordings of any of those songs, but that there was one exception. We've come to that exception: William Shatner's version of Pulp's "Common People."

I never gave a fuck about Pulp, but the time I spent living in England clued me in to the fact that there are people to whom this band is super meaningful, and this song is their super-meaningfullest, and this version hurts them in their very souls. For me, Jarvis Cocker's voice has always been the sonic equivalent of drinking a glass of warm milk. But Shatner? Man, Shatner puts some zip into it!

I love madcap shit, and this song is very much that. It is full of B I G I D E A S that shouldn’t make sense, and which straddle that very fine line between being drenched in irony and being oddly sincere in the quest to defy your expectations. For me, it lands on the sincere, and much more interesting, side of that line. It's not just Shatner, who delivers these lines with a fury—"if you called your dad, he could stop it all!"—that suggests that he hasn't been a very wealthy celebrity for the bulk of his life. It's Joe Jackson (of course it's Joe Jackson!) jumping in to sing the choruses, which Shatner delivers alongside him in an angry growl, all back by a full choir. It's the steadily increasing tempo, building to this glorious crescendo, where the hundred-voiced choir starts repeating the line, "Want to sleep with common people like yooooou," until the whole thing just exhausts itself.

Pop music—especially this sort of dreary, early-90's British pop music—takes itself oppressively seriously sometimes, and so it's satisfying to see it deflated a little bit. But I wouldn't love this song if it were just goofing on some Britpop band I was only ever dimly aware of. I love it because it's so much fun. There's a sense of endless possibility to this recording, where a giant choir can accompany Captain Kirk and somehow Joe Jackson got pulled off the shelf to duet with him, delivering his lines with utmost sincerity. It doesn't have to be "Common People," but as a canvas for Ben Folds—who produced the song, and the album on which it appeared—to lay out all of his biggest, least conventional, most unrestrained ideas in one place, it's perfectly appropriate. It's a good song, it has a clear narrative and a first-person perspective that an actor can find himself in, and Shatner clearly gets into interpreting it, clearly feels some connection to the material. Which helps tone down the ridiculous irony factor, too—if he'd recorded, say, "Creep" by Radiohead, or "Smells Like Teen Spirit," or something whose entire joke would be that William Shatner is saying those words—I would not fondly recall the song all these years later. As it is, though, I think that this particular rendition of "Common People" is one of the more joyful, interesting, and thrilling pop moments of the decade in which it appeared. (Incidentally, there’s also a full ballet version, too.) It's an exploration of what the manic pop thrill you get from hearing things you never, ever expected can feel like. In all seriousness, I just love this song.