It would be a serious “scoop” if proved true… The Independent on Friday circulated a report attributed to the alternative weekly “Athens Voice” by which Yanis Varoufakis’ wife, the elegant and attractive Danae Stratou, is the inspiration of Pulp’s 1995 hit “Common People”.
According to the Independent, “Stratou studied at St. Martins College of Art and Design between 1983 and 1988, the same year singer-songwriter Jarvis Cocker enrolled in a film studies course there during a break from the band.”
Cocker’s quote of a Greek female student who “wanted to move to Hackney and live like ‘the common people’,” has fascinated fans and critics ever since.
Stratou is the eldest daughter of an industrialist who at one point ran Greece’s textile concern, Piraiki-Patraiki, before the latter folded.
Speaking to the New Musical Express in 2013, Cocker was quoted as saying:
“I’d met the girl from the song many years before, when I was at St Martin’s College. I’d met her on a sculpture course, but at St Martin’s you had a thing called Crossover Fortnight, where you had to do another discipline for a couple of weeks. I was studying film, and she might’ve been doing painting, but we both decided to do sculpture for two weeks. I don’t know her name. It would’ve been around 1988, so it was already ancient history when I wrote about her.
With a neo-classical residence with an Acropolis view, a vacation home – pool included – on the island of Aegina and work as a high-end visual artist in Europe and Texas, Danae is certainly not “common people” …
Lest we forget the lyrics:
“Common People”
She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin’s College, that’s where I caught her eye.
She told me that her Dad was loaded
I said in that case I’ll have a rum and coke-cola.
She said fine and in thirty seconds time she said, I want to live like common people
I want to do whatever common people do, I want to sleep with common people
I want to sleep with common people like you.
Well what else could I do – I said I’ll see what I can do.
I took her to a supermarket
I don’t know why but I had to start it somewhere, so it started there.
I said pretend you’ve got no money, she just laughed and said oh you’re so funny.
I said yeah? Well I can’t see anyone else smiling in here.
Are you sure you want to live like common people
You want to see whatever common people see
You want to sleep with common people,
you want to sleep with common people like me.
But she didn’t understand, she just smiled and held my hand.
Rent a flat above a shop, cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend you never went to school.
But still you’ll never get it right
‘cos when you’re laid in bed at night watching roaches climb the wall
If you call your Dad he could stop it all.
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.
Sing along with the common people, sing along and it might just get you thru’
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they’re laughing at you and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.
I want to live with common people, I want to live with common people…
