Songfacts®:

• "Editions Of You" from For Your Pleasure hears Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry lamenting how his penchant for the finer things in life, such as art, glamor, and excess, has hindered his ability to make a human connection. Ferry sang about a similar topic on "Bitters End," a track from their debut album.
• In the second verse, Ferry sings about how he isn't made for "the quiet life":
  
  'Cause sometimes you find a yearning for the quiet life
  The country air and all its joys
  But badgers couldn't compensate at twice the price
  For just another night with the boys, oh yeah
  And boys will be boys, will be boys
  
  The Human League frontman Philip Oakey said this verse taught him how to subtly insert humor into his music. "I always knew irony in pop was dangerous," he explained to Roxy Music biographer David Buckley. "The line was exactly drawn by Bryan Ferry with, 'But badgers couldn't compensate at twice the price.' He was as funny as you could get and, when I came to make my own records, I knew people didn't want to buy comedy records. If they were going to lay out a proportion of the money they had sweated to earn, they didn't want to think you were in the studio laughing at them for buying it. So, I've always erred on the side of being serious."
• This song features an instrumental section that hears each band member performing a solo, with Brian Eno generating his shrieking part on a portable analog synthesizer called a VCS 3. Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh referenced this solo in an interview with Sound on Sound in 2010: "I wasn't really sold on Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson and Yes. Bands were all doing bloopy organ sounds. They'd either make mean organ sounds or silly organ sounds, but you could really tell there was a keyboard involved. The first time I heard a synthesizer that I found shocking and inspiring was probably 'Editions Of You.'
• With its frantic pacing, "Editions Of You" has been cited by several music critics as the first punk song ever written. Roxy Music were very influential on the British punk scene, with Sex Pistols founder and guitarist Steve Jones telling Entertainment Weekly: "I adored Roxy Music when I was 13. I remember studying their photo for hours and wondering where they got their clothes."
• Men Without Hats, Mudhoney, and Filthy Friends (a supergroup fronted by Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck) have all covered "Editions Of You." German house trio Whirlpool Productions, most famous for "From Disco to Disco," sampled it on "Crazy Music" in 1998.
• Roxy Music performed this song as part of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. The band, who were inducted into the museum by Simon Le Bon and John Taylor of Duran Duran, also performed "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," "Out of the Blue," "Love Is the Drug," "More Than This," and "Avalon."
• "Editions Of You" is the B-side to "Do the Strand," which was released as a single in the US, Japan, and Europe in 1973 to promote For Your Pleasure, and in the UK in 1978 to promote Roxy Music's compilation album Greatest Hits. The single failed to chart in all countries.