Human

The band met Stuart Price about producing tracks for Sawdust and made a demo of Human instead, recorded in about two hours at his home studio in London. It changed little afterwards and was kept off Sawdust because it was too good. Flowers called it "Johnny Cash meets the Pet Shop Boys" and one of their best recordings so far. Released on 22 September 2008 as the album's first single, with A Crippling Blow on the B-side, it carried a Paul Normansell portrait of Keuning on the sleeve.

The band's official biography traces the chorus line to a Hunter S. Thompson remark that America was raising a generation of dancers afraid to step out of line, and Flowers told Rolling Stone that anyone who could not see the connection was an idiot. A 2014 Blinkbox poll still voted it the weirdest lyric of all time. It reached three in Britain, 32 in America and number one on the US dance club chart and in Norway, and it was Spotify's most streamed song worldwide in 2008. Stereogum heard a successful step outside the band's usual mold, a flirtation with Europop.

Video and live

Danny Drysdale filmed the video at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah, with Normansell's portraits, a white tiger, an eagle and a cougar, ending as the sunset turns into the album cover. The band first played the song on Saturday Night Live on 4 October 2008 and have played it 775 times since. It opens Live from the Royal Albert Hall, and at Glastonbury in 2019 Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys sang it with them. Minnie Driver, Go West and Kim Petras have covered it, and Better Oblivion Community Center played it live. The upload in the hypersongs web is the official Drysdale video of the Day & Age recording.