"The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" is a song by the English musician David Bowie from his 1999 album Hours.

"The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" was written by David Bowie and Reeves Gabrels between late 1998 and early 1999 for a proposed solo album for the latter.

The track was also written in a more conventional style reminiscent of Bowie's mid-1980s works, compared to the experimental cut-up nature of his other 1990s recordings.

Bowie and Gabrels performed most of the instruments themselves, with overdubs by bassist Mark Plati and drummer Mike Levesque.

He also said that Levesque played under the influence of a biography on the Who drummer Keith Moon,[5] leading to, in Chris O'Leary's words, a mirage of "wild fills and kick and snare hits spiced with tambourine and cowbell".

[2] "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" is the rockiest piece on Hours, meshing a glam-punk baseline with guitar elements of "Little Wonder" (1997) and percussion of "Diamond Dogs" (1974).

[5] For the lyrics, Bowie was inspired by the "bright young things" in Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies (1930), the same novel that influenced 1973's "Aladdin Sane".

[6] The original Hours version replaced "Thursday's Child" as the first single from the album in Australia and Japan in September 1999.

[4] An unreleased music video for "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" was shot by "I'm Afraid of Americans" directors Dom and Nic on 7 September 1999 at the Kit Kat Club in New York.

Discussing its unreleased status, Bowie stated that the directors failed to achieve the proper lighting with the puppets.