'We wanted to write a song that would be fantastic forever'

However, when it came to rehearsing the song Banks said the band kept naturally speeding up, building to a final crescendo when they actually wanted to maintain a consistent rhythm.

But, he said, when they managed to keep the tempo down "everyone was bored to tears" by the halfway point, and the track became "slow and ponderous".

Making it faster didn't work either, he said, so the band decided to embrace the change of speed and set a "timed framework" that gathered momentum as it went on.

"It was my inaccurate time keeping that created a happy accident," Banks said.

"It built like a runaway train, and that was the mystery secret of the song."

Prior to 1995, Pulp had failed to trouble the upper echelons of the charts, only reaching number 33 with their 1994 track Do You Remember The First Time?

So why did Common People catch on in a way that previous Pulp material had failed to?

Eric Clarke, a former Professor of Music at the University of Oxford, said it was in part the band's ability to reflect the mood of the country mixing "a genuine energetic, celebratory quality" with "anger and a sneering quality".

"Common People is the most brilliant single from the 1990s

"It was coming to the end of the Thatcher and Major period, people were sick to the back teeth of years of Tory government.

"There was a general upwelling of feeling that surely things could be different.

"It mixes thin, cheesy synth sounds with a really driving beat that seems to always be accelerating, the whole song is driving on to that incredible anthemic chorus at the end, which feels, to my ears, like an outpouring, a genuine release of frustration."

Nicola Dibben, now music professor at the University of Sheffield, was herself a student in the city in 1995.

"What's really striking and meaningful is how the song captures what it means to be poor," she said.

"Common People sends up class tourism. I love the anger and glee that Jarvis deals with through his acerbic witticisms.

"His confessional breathy lyrics, he's so close to the mic - you can hear the lip smacks - it draws you in to the story right from the start."

Perhaps the moment that cemented Common People's place in history was the band's last-minute headline appearance at Glastonbury.

After Stone Roses guitarist John Squire broke his collar bone falling off a bike, the Sheffield band were drafted in to plug the hole.

What followed was arguably one of Glastonbury's most famous headline shows.

The moment was not lost on Cocker.

Addressing the enormous crowd, he said: "If you want something to happen enough then it will actually happen. I believe that. That's why we are stood on this stage today.

"If a lanky git like me can do it, then so can you."

Now, 30 years on, as the band prepare to tour again - their first since the death of bassist Mackey - Banks said he believed Common People was "still a song that gets you going".

"To me it still sounds fresh, vibrant and immediate and a worthwhile social commentary," he said,

Reflecting on the songs enduring success in 2004, Doyle said: "I remember at one point thinking I wish we could write a song that would be fantastic for ever and ever and ever - and then I thought 'oh, we have'."