Beautiful People

Album: Yes (2009)
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Songfacts®:

  • One-time Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr not only plays the guitar on this track, but also the harmonica. Marr and Neil Tennant (for a short while) were both members of the super group Electronic who had an international hit in 1989 with "Getting Away With It."
  • Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett contributed the orchestral arrangement to this track, which features the London Metropolitan Orchestra.
  • The song was originally written for a television series called Beautiful People. This version sounded more "folky," but producers Xenomania subsequently put a 60s beat on it. Tennant recalled to The Big Issue: "Our friend, playwright Jonathan Harvey, said he was doing a new TV series, a comedy series called Beautiful People, and would we consider writing a song for it. So we started writing a song with that title and it came together very quickly."
  • The song features backing vocals by upcoming Xenomania talents Alex Gardner and Jessie Malakouti.
  • This song was released on September 25, 2009 as the second single from the Pet Shop Boys tenth studio album Yes in Germany, peaking at #65 in the singles chart there. In November it was released in the USA as a download.

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