The Korgis – Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime

Bath demo, David Lord strings, Rialto No. 5

On 11 April 1980, Rialto Records released Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime by The Korgis. James Warren wrote the song and sang lead; Andy Davis played with him in the English pop duo that grew out of Stackridge. The track appears on their second album Dumb Waiters. David Lord produced with the band, turning a spare piano demo into a polished radio single with soft synthesizer strings and a sampled Japanese koto figure that cost, Warren later joked, more than a house.

Warren’s first sketch aimed at a US radio ballad. One Sunday at the piano he found the “change your heart” chords, then the chorus line. Davis suggested keeping the chorus in a minor key like the verse. The finished single reached No. 5 in the UK, No. 18 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 in France and Spain, with strong showings across Europe and Australasia. That run marked the commercial peak of The Korgis’ chart career.

What you hear is unhurried: Warren’s vocal sits close, the arrangement blooms slowly, and the hook repeats without rush. Listeners often hear a love song. Warren has said he meant something closer to a Zen statement, shaped by Buddhist practice, while accepting the romantic reading as fair. Covers later kept the melody in circulation long after the duo’s chart moment.