"Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)" is the seventh single released by the British pop band Scritti Politti, issued in the UK on 24 February 1984 by Virgin Records.

Writing in a 2011 interview with Green Gartside, Robin Turner said: In April '84, "Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)" crackled over airwaves from Anglesey to Arizona like an alien radio transmission beamed out to an unsuspecting planet.

A gleaming, chromium nugget molded by ultra-modernist studioheads, it heralded in three and a half minutes the dramatic, bravura transformation of a band called Scritti Politti.

The resultant LP, Cupid and Psyche 85, yielded a string of radio-slaying singles ("Wood Beez...", "Absolute", "The Word Girl" and "Perfect Way") that segued fluently between ultra-slick robotised funk and meticulously constructed swoonsome lovers rock.

It appeared on the CD release of the album and also on the 2005 compilation 12"/80s, which prompted AllMusic to call its inclusion "smart"[7] and Pitchfork Media to note the extended version's "ultra-brite (p)op-art stabs and gimmicky samples are a mini-essay in mid-80s remixing-- as well as on what the 80s did to punk.