The song, from the group's second album,
Dumb Waiters, was released on 11 April 1980, and reached number five on the
UK Singles Chart and number 18 on the US
Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song topped the singles charts in France, was also number one in Spain. It charted at number five in Ireland, number six in Switzerland, number 11 in the Netherlands, number 11 in Australia, number 12 in New Zealand, and number 14 in Belgium. That represented the peak of the Korgis' chart success. The original 1980 version of "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" appears on the following compilation albums and CDs: •
The Best of The Korgis (1983) •
Archive Series (1997) •
Greatest Hits (2001) • ''
Don't Look Back – The Very Best of The Korgis'' (CD1) (2 CD) (2003) In 1989, original members James Warren and Andy Davis reunited the Korgis after they were approached by the Bristol-based International Hostage Release Foundation, who were gathering artists for the recording of a charity album to raise money for their cause. As they did not own the rights to the original 1980 recording, the duo recorded a new version of "Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime" at Coach House Studios in Bristol for the project. Originally due for release as a single in November 1989, the release was delayed until 13 August 1990. The version has appeared on the foundation's 1991 charity album ''Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime'', the band's 1992 album ''
This World's for Everyone and their 2005 compilation CD and DVD Kollection''. In 1993, the Korgis collaborated with the electronic music production duo
DNA on a new version of "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime". The band were inspired to give the song the "'90s treatment" after hearing a number of "dreadful 'rave' cover versions". They approached DNA to work on the track after a chance meeting with them at a studio in
Bath. The single, which was released in the UK by Euro Records on 14 June 1993, reached number 78 in the charts. The Korgis recorded a live, acoustic version of "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" in the summer of 2005, which was intended for release on
Kollection, but which eventually made its appearance in 2006 on the
Unplugged CD. An alternate version of "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime", with a different second verse, was included as a bonus track on the 1999 CD re-issue of 1980 album
Dumb Waiters. That alternate version also appears on the compilations
Klassics – The Best of The Korgis (2001) and ''
Don't Look Back – The Very Best of The Korgis'' (CD2) (2 CD) (2003), which also includes an uptempo, 3-minute 51-second, version of the song as its closing track, taking the number of variants of the song on the double-CD compilation to three. When Warren and Davis reformed their first band,
Stackridge, in 2007, they incorporated "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" into their set, with Warren introducing it as a song he wrote for the Korgis. A live version by Stackridge was included in both the CD and DVD versions of
The Forbidden City, recorded at one of the 2007 shows in
Bath, England. Keyboardist Glenn Tommey and drummer Andy Marsden, both one-time backing musicians for The Korgis, were part of that incarnation of Stackridge. In 2019, former
Noah and the Whale bassist Matt Owens met Warren and suggested that they collaborate on a new recording of the song. The acoustic and stripped down version included a restored second verse that was omitted from the original recording. It received a release as a digital single in 2025 on the Singsong Music label. ==Critical reception==