Most of this song is about how wonderful the world is, but at the end, it turns around with the line, "But not for me."
Devo made short films to accompany their songs with the idea of releasing them on Laser Disc, a promising technology that was a huge failure.
Even though Laser Discs didn't work out, MTV launched in 1981 and created a market for music videos.
With very few videos to choose from, they put Devo's "Whip It" in heavy rotation, but when music videos became more common, MTV abandoned Devo.
Jerry Casale: "We wanted to get everybody into a mood where people thought Devo was saying the world was really nice and saying the world was beautiful,
then it turns out to be one man's opinion, which is mine, which is, while the world could be beautiful, it's not for me because of what I'm seeing."
Mark Mothersbaugh: "Jerry and I both tried to sing like Stan from Wall Of Voodoo ("Mexican Radio") when we were doing the song.
I don't know why, but we could imagine Stan singing that song, so we were both trying to fake his accent and Jerry did a great job so he ended up singing on the record."
Casale: "That's a song that was written with the video in mind. The video idea preceded the song.
We start off with silly imagery taken from archival film libraries of just stupid stuff -
Americana pop culture stuff from the past and silly imagery of silly people, then slowly start warping it over darker and darker things -
Ku Klux Klan race riots, war, suffering, atomic bomb, starvation. It transforms from one thing to another."
Rage Against The Machine covered this on their 2000 album Renegades, the last album the band released.
They turned the song into a sad, sentimental dirge. When they played it live, they performed it on acoustic guitars.
Many of Devo's songs have been used in commercials. The ads often misinterpret the songs or clash with Devo's philosophy that people should think for themselves.
Says Casale, "Today, when people use Devo's music in commercials, they either completely miss the point or excise the irony on purpose.
Target used It's A Beautiful World, and of course, left out the line 'For you, for you, but not for me.'
They just made it a beautiful world straight up."
When Devo's songs are used in commercials, the band re-records them so they can keep the performance rights.
Early on, they signed some bad contracts and never made much money from their songs.
Allowing their songs to be used in commercials means they can finally make some money from them.
As for how they feel about their songs being used to sell products, Mothersbaugh says:
"We were so far out of left field that we were always intrigued with the idea of making commercial art and fine art intersect.
We were always really impressed with people that did a good job of it and felt like there was much more of a chance to change things then to just butt heads.
Some of our better successes were things that were more subversive."
Beautiful world lyrics
It's a beautiful world we live in
A sweet romantic place
Beautiful people everywhere
The way they show they care
Makes me want to say
It's a beautiful world
For you
It's a wonderful time to be here
It's nice to be alive
Wonderful people everywhere
The way they comb their hair
Makes me want to say
It's a wonderful place
For you
Hey
Tell me what I say
Boy 'n' girl with the new clothes on
You can shake it to me all night long
Hey hey
It's not for me
(from www.songfacts.com interview)