Beautiful War

Album: Mechanical Bull (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This atmospheric ballad about two lovers kissing and making up after falling out was was originally penned by frontman Caleb Followill the same weekend as 2008 hit single "Use Somebody" and recorded by him while drunk in the studio. The vocalist recalled on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio One show that he didn't remember the session, but producer Angelo Petraglia played it back for him the next day and encouraged him to flesh it out.
  • Drummer Nathan Followill recalled to Rolling Stone that once the band had laid this song down, "we thought, 'S--t, we've got our pop song – now let's go have fun.'"
  • The song's music video stars Tron: Legacy actor Garrett Hedlund as a strong-jawed cowboy whose life takes an unfortunate turn, following a bar room brawl. The clip was modeled on 1970s Westerns and was inspired by the '80s John Travolta film Urban Cowboy.

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