Lizzo Covers Sam Smith’s ‘Unholy’ For BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge
Lizzo hit the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge earlier this week for a run through of the Sam Smith–Kim Petras hit Unholy.
The singer made the controversial song her own with a flute solo, she also performed the title track of her 2022 album, Special.
Lizzo has also been in the news after announcing that she will be appearing the forthcoming season finale of The Simpsons.
The show’s producers had heard that Lizzo is a Simpsons fan and they reached out with an offer to guest star. When Lizzo signed on, Long penned the lyrics to a song while Flight of the Conchords’ Bret McKenzie wrote the melody. “The song is called, ‘It Was Marge, Bitch,’ and the bitch in question is Homer,” Simpsons executive producer Tim Long told Entertainment Weekly. “I can’t give you too much context without giving you too much story, but it is really in her wheelhouse — and she sang the hell out of it.”
In the episode, “Lizzo says ‘bitch’ a lot and she does not suffer Homer very well,” said Long. “She ends up slapping and kicking him a lot to try to knock some sense into him. Which is very funny. And they end up developing a weird rapport that’s very, very sweet.”
The singer’s guest spot could have ended there, “but then we thought, ‘Well, if we have Lizzo, we should see Lizzo,'” Long continued. “So we animated a little thing at the end where she is recording her part with the Simpsons. And that’s really funny, too. It’s sort of a weird ‘behind-the-scenes’ reality.”
“Obviously, she’s an incredible flautist and she brought her flute to the record session, and that was incredible to watch her play,” Long says. “She ends up jamming with Lisa. And what’s funny is that Lizzo is such a big Simpsons fan, she ad-libbed the line, ‘I’m gonna get my Sasha Flute and you grab your saxamaphone and let’s jam.’ Saxamaphone is such a deep-cut reference to The Simpsons that we were all like, ‘Wow.’ She knew all the Simpsons references. She recorded with Dan Castellaneta [who voices Homer] and I think everyone was starstruck — us by Lizzo and her by Dan. That was really special.”