"Ordinary People" is a song by British singer-songwriter Steve Harley, released as a non-album single in 2015. It was written by Harley, Jim Cregan and Robert Hart, and produced by Harley. The song is Harley's first new song of five years, following the release of his 2010 album Stranger Comes to Town.

The song was originally written and performed by Jim Cregan and Robert Hart as a demoed track, who handed the recording to Harley in 2010. Although Harley did nothing with the song for five years, in 2015, he gained the support of Cregan and Hart to further develop the song. The song, in an early incarnation, was first performed live by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel during their Autumn/Winter 2014 tour at the York Barbican on 13 December. During this airing, Harley revealed the song was a "work in progress". The next performance of the song live was at Hull City Hall on 26 February 2015. In an online diary entry, dated 13 January, for his official website, Harley noted: "Next show: Hull City Hall – complete with new song. Well, the same new song we played at York Barbican, but with a twist. I said it was a work in progress, and now it has a separate section, a middle eight."

In June 2015, Harley spent several days in the Shrubbery Studio at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, recording "Ordinary People". Harley used his touring band Cockney Rebel to record the song, while the studio's owner Richard Clark engineered it. "Ordinary People" was bassist Marty Prior's debut performance on a Steve Harley song, after joining the band in 2014. During the sessions, assistant engineer George Perks had posted a photograph to his official website, and announced: "Honoured to be in the Shrubbery studio this month with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, assisting the recording of "Ordinary People". The new single sounds great, and has been sent over to producer extraordinaire Matt Butler for mixing. I'm really excited to hear the final mix! Stay tuned...!" It was announced during the same month that the song would be released as a single nearer the time of the upcoming 'The Best Years of Our Lives' tour in November. Harley hoped that the song would gain radio airplay across the UK and act as a publicity boost for the tour.

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