And on the more circumspect side of the fence, funkmaster Sly and friends deliver the message with subtlety and oblique savvy. This isn’t just about colour – it’s rich man, poor man, fat man, thin man – but the context is irrelevant; everyone’s the same, and the word is all the more powerful for the freedom and joy the Family Stone put in to saying it. ‘Everyday People’ is swift, concise, blissful and propelled by the easiest horns this side of Al Green. When Arrested Development decided the track needed to be revisited in the ‘90s, they took the title line, flipped it, found ponderous beats and hectored us to within an inch of our patience. Sly knew that a bit of groove could sweeten any pill.
And it’s a groove to hook a little madam, who clapped along in time and, when the two minutes twenty-two seconds clipped by in a blink, announced “It’s gone”. And it is over all too soon, but it’s said as much as it’ll ever need to say.
Jukebox Junior 
Thanks for post on Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People.” I agree with you that this song showcased Sly’s uncanny ability to place important messages about society into irrestable grooves. I write about this and more in my book Sly: the Lives of Sylvester Stewart and Sly Stone. I hope you’ll check it out.
Good stuff. Thanks for dropping by, Eddie.
Actually this isn’t even Sly’s best track of 1969 – this is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ahhmiuyko0
But since everything Sly did is better than everything anyone else did this is still worth its place. There’s too much I like in these charts. Hope I’m not gonna spend too long here.
I do love that one as well. Perhaps unfortunately, I latterly associate it with Macaulay Culkin weepie My Girl. Hmmm.
Nice of you to pop in. Do browse.