[5] The song is one of Sly Stone's pleas for peace and equality between differing races and social groups, a major theme and focus for the band.

Sly and the Family Stone's message was about peace and equality through music, and this song reflects the same.

Unlike the band's more typically funky and psychedelic records, "Everyday People" is a mid-tempo number with a more mainstream pop feel.

The chant mocks the futility of people hating each other for being tall, short, rich, poor, fat, skinny, white, black, or anything else.

Bassist Larry Graham contends that the track featured the first instance of the "slap bass technique", which would become a staple of funk and other genres.

Later slap bass songs – for example, Graham's performance on "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)" – expanded on the technique, incorporating a complementary "pull" or "pop" component.

It is one of the most covered songs in the band's repertoire, with versions by the Winstons, Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers, William Bell, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the Supremes and the Four Tops, Peggy Lee, Belle & Sebastian, Pearl Jam, and many others.

Hip-hop group Arrested Development used the song as the basis of their 1992 hit, "People Everyday", which reached No.