People is a show tune written by Jule Styne with lyrics by Bob Merrill for the 1964 Broadway musical Funny Girl, introduced by Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice. The song appears on the Funny Girl: Original Broadway Cast Recording and was released as a single in January 1964 after being recorded on December 20, 1963, and it is often described as a ballad in the show tune/pop standard tradition. It tells Brice’s feelings for Nicky Arnstein, and the famous line "People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world" helped it become one of Streisand’s signature songs. The track peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent three weeks at number 1 on the adult contemporary chart in 1964, and in 1998 Streisand’s version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame; in 2004 it finished at number 13 on AFI’s 100 Years...100 Songs list. The Broadway run began in 1964 and helped cement the tune as a lasting classic, widely covered by many artists.
