Songfacts®:

• The opening song from Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, this is the most psychedelic track on the record. Speaking of the tune, frontman Matthew 'Murph' Murphy said: "'Cheetah Tongue' is a song about dealing with the pressures of adulthood and failing miserably."
• The lyrics on "Cheetah Tongue" and other Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life tracks venture into the surreal. Matthew Murphy told ABC Radio he wanted to avoid simply telling "the story of girl meets boy, they have a break-up and s--t goes down."
  
  Instead, the frontman challenged himself to "just spurt out thoughts and things that are happening at the time and see what kind of puzzle they form by the end of the three-and-a-half minutes."
• The Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life album title is from the beginning of a song that Murphy started, but never finished. He explained to HMV.com: "I just thought it fitted the album's lyrical content and sounded really cool. That's why we went with it."