Album · William Shatner
Has Been by William Shatner
Has Been is an album by William Shatner, released in 2004. 1 song from it has charted on rock radio countdowns, with 9 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Common People”, on 9 lists with a best position of #2.
Has Been, released on Shout! Factory in 2004, is William Shatner's first musical album since The Transformed Man back in 1968, and the man who played Captain Kirk still doesn't sing so much as declaim. What changed is the company he keeps. Ben Folds produced and arranged the whole thing and co-wrote most of it with Shatner, building real, sturdy arrangements around his spoken prose-poems, so the camp gets undercut by something close to actual feeling.
The guest list reads like a hip record-store clerk's fantasy. Joe Jackson joins in on a cover of Pulp's "Common People", which Shatner turns into a full-throttle spoken tirade; Aimee Mann and Folds sing backup on "That's Me Trying"; Lemon Jelly turn up on "Together"; Adrian Belew plays on "I Can't Get Behind That"; Henry Rollins is aboard too; and Brad Paisley wrote "Real" specifically for Shatner.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Has Been on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Common People | 9 | #2 | – | 2004–2025 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.