Background
By the early 1990s, Duran Duran's popularity had faded. Their album Liberty had proved a commercial failure, its two singles failing to make a significant showing on British or American charts.
It was not until Capitol leaked "Ordinary World" to a radio station in Florida in the autumn of 1992 that it looked like Duran Duran mania might yet hit again. The single proved so popular that Capitol had to push the US release date up, ultimately releasing it in December.
The keyboards in the song were arranged and performed by Nick Rhodes John Jones and Welsh session musician Matt Thomas. The drums were played by Steve Ferrone at Maison Rouge.
The guitar solo that characterizes this song was arranged and performed by Warren Cuccurullo, former player with Frank Zappa. His instrumental rock trio version became a staple of his solo shows and was included on one of his solo albums "Roadrage".
Simon LeBon would go on to sing the song with Pavarotti at a WarChild benefit, which was released on home video as Pavarotti & Friends: Together for the Children of Bosnia. Le Bon later said of the event, "If you're talking about name dropping, he's one of the biggest names you could drop, Pav-The-Man."
The music video was filmed by director Nick Egan at Huntington Gardens in San Marino, California and the song later featured in the soundtrack to the film Layer Cake in 2005.
The lyrics to "Ordinary World" were written by Simon Le Bon as the second of a trilogy of songs for his late friend David Miles; the others being "Do You Believe in Shame?" (1988) and "Out of My Mind" (1997).
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