Songfacts®:

• "Fabulous People" is Joe Jackson's humorous portrait of "Billy," an ordinary young man who is fed up with being, well, ordinary. He longs to join the glamorous, exciting world of the "fabulous people," apparently unaware that being normal is a perfectly respectable occupation and, in most countries, requires no special qualifications.
  
  "It's quite a humorous song," Jackson told Forbes. "I can't resist poking fun at people who I think take themselves too seriously. That's one of my problems."
  
  The joke, he explained, is that Billy is "a very boring, very ordinary, normal white heterosexual guy" who simply cannot accept that this is who he is. The punchline has a slightly melancholy edge when Billy admits, "I tried being myself, but no one cared." It is funny, Jackson noted, but also "quite sad in a way."
• Jackson was considerably more provocative when discussing the song with Mojo magazine, describing it as a "piss-take" of LGBTQ culture and joking that perhaps the acronym should include an "S" for straight, "just to be inclusive." He connected the song with "Fairy Dust," from his 2000 album Volume 4, which similarly poked fun at aspects of gay culture. Jackson stressed that he had "nothing in particular against" LGBTQ culture but said that people taking themselves too seriously and making demands was liable to trigger his comic instincts. He attributed that attitude to "the Pompey side of me," referring to his working-class Portsmouth roots.
• Whatever one makes of Jackson's targets, "Fabulous People" fits into a long-running fascination with sexuality and identity in his songwriting. The subject goes back at least to "Real Men," from his 1982 album Night and Day, a song that examines masculinity, gender expectations and homosexuality with considerably more seriousness.
• Jackson wrote "Fabulous People" and co-produced it with Patrick Dillett, whose resumé includes work with David Byrne and They Might Be Giants. The song takes a nostalgic glance backward, with an arrangement inspired by Jackson's 1982 hit "Steppin' Out," particularly its distinctive chiming electric-piano groove.
• The song was released as a single from Jackson's 22nd album, Hope and Fury. Recorded at Fuzz Factory Studio in Berlin and Reservoir Studios in New York, the album was inspired lyrically by Jackson's complicated relationship with England.