Helena Beat

"Helena Beat" is a song by American indie pop band Foster the People. It is the opening track from their debut studio album Torches and was released as the record's second single. It was solicited to radio on July 26, 2011, and solicited to radio in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2011. On August 10, 2011, BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James selected the song as his Record of the Week.

It was announced in January 2012 that "Helena Beat" was the most-played track on Australian radio station Triple J in 2011. The song appeared at number 15 on the Triple J Hottest 100, 2011 poll, and it ranked as music streaming service Spotify's fifth-most streamed song of the year.

Inspiration and composition

"Helena Beat" was written by the group's lead songwriter Mark Foster to embody the attitude of the drug culture within Hollywood. Foster says the lyrics—particularly the line "Yeah yeah and it's okay, I tie my hands up to a chair so I don't fall that way"—are meant to express the nonchalant attitude that people had to their destructive tendencies. He said, "They're the young, hot, up and coming, powerful people that are gonna run the world. But they're just going out and doing drugs every night. They're saying it with this big smile of their face like 'I'm great, everything's great,' 'but don't you see that you're completely out of your mind on drugs right now that you can't even stand?'. Foster composed the song using the Logic Pro software; the original project file for "Helena Beat" is included in new copies of the application.