Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People,"
performed by Arrested Development

In his chronicle of black music in America, “A Change is Gonna Come,” Craig Werner suggests that Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People” and “Family Affair” — both Billboard No. 1s — serve as psychic bookends for the years we’ve come to refer to as the ’60s. The upbeat, endlessly listenable “Everyday People,” from 1968, is an essentially optimistic, let’s-all-get-along song rising from scarred ground:

I am no better and neither are you
We are the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me you know me and then
You can’t figure out the bag I’m in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah

There is a long hair that doesn’t like the short hair
For bein’ such a rich one that will not help the poor one
And different strokes for different folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby

Contrast it with the belched-up-from-Hell vocals and production values on “Family Affair,” from 1971, an essentially pessimistic song:

One child grows up to be
Somebody that just loves to learn
And another child grows up to be
Somebody you’d just love to burn
Mom loves the both of them
You see it’s in the blood
Both kids are good to Mom
Blood’s thicker than mud

“Family Affair” can be read as a disillusioned response to “Everyday People,” and Arrested Development picks up that conversation 20 years with “People Everyday (Metamorphosis Mix),” a cut from 3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life of...

“People Everyday” is part cover, part sample — it couples the original chorus and tune with new verses and instrumentation, and so while it’s lyrically dissimilar it’s still close kin; much more so than, say, the latest abuse of a Stevie Wonder riff by Coolio or Will Smith. That kinship is as apparent in its melody as it is in its subject matter:

My day was going great and my soul was at ease
Until a group of brothers started buggin’ out
Drinkin’ the 40 ounce, goin’ the nigga route
Disrespectin’ my black queen
Holdin’ their crotches and bein’ obscene
At first I ignored them ’cause see I know the type
They got drunk they got guns and yes they wanna fight
And they see a young couple havin’ a time that’s good
And their egos wanna test a brother’s manhood
...
Well, I stay calm and pray the niggas leave me be
but they’re squeezin’ parts of my date’s anatomy
Why, Lord, do brothers have to drill me?
’Cause if I start to hit this man they’ll have to kill me

The final verse culminates in a fistfight, broken up by police, in which the speaker gets the better of the harasser — “a black man actin’ like a nigga gettin’ stomped by an African.” And to deepen the folk-tale nature of the story being told, the “black queen” is a friend of the speaker who was, of all things, at the park demonstrating. “People Everyday” both explicates and disses the nigga mentality while lauding both the moral superiority (and brawling prowess) of socially conscious black men and women. It’s a contradictory lesson turned on itself a second time by a freestyle tag that appends the last verse, stating: “The moral of the story is, you never know who you’re steppin’ to / You might get stabbed, shot, killed or hurt / It’s not even worth it, hey, you know?” The lesson isn’t exactly clear, but its portrait of intraracial relations 30 years after “Family Affair” is pellucid. Sly would be proud.

And not just because the lyrics are relevant. The song itself is a compendium of the attributes that define black music: call and response, harmonizing, improvisation, multiple rhythms, highly expressive vocalization .... In fact, its fusion of roots R&B and rap stylings was five years ahead of its time — not hardcore enough to be properly respected by the early ’90s hip-hop community, but clearly presaging the popularity of artists ranging from Lauryn Hill to Outkast. Pop music tastemakers of the day seized on Arrested Development — the group’s “Tennessee” and “Mr. Wendal” were ever-present on MTV and Top 40 Radio — which did little to improve their street cred, and the band dissolved after releasing their follow-up to 3 Years ... . But “People Everyday” remains a perfect example of how black culture recycles itself not for lack of ideas or perceptions but as a signifier that its ideas and perceptions are inextricably steeped in its history.

— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)