Thing That Makes You Beautiful

a cappella SATB – by Jane Voss – arr. Peter Amidon

In Amidons’ book/CD “Twenty-five Anthems for Interfaith & Community Choirs“. Sing this to anyone who needs a lift. It has become a favorite with our Hallowell hospice singers, and it has been sung at weddings. We learned it from the singing of Michael Cooney on his CD album ‘Together Again‘. We recorded Michael Cooney’s version, but the lyrics below are the original lyrics that Jane Voss wrote.  There are a few small word differences; the biggest difference is that in the original Jane Voss repeats the last line of each verse. The song is on Jane Voss’s album “Farther Down the Road“.

LYRICS

The Thing That Makes You Beautiful
by Jane Voss
©1988 Obscure Music (BMI)

There’s not a pretty or a handsome
That could hope to stand in place
Or hold a candle to the light I’ve seen
Shining from your face;
What no random quirk of nature
Could ever compromise,
The thing that makes you beautiful is in your eyes.
Oh, the thing that makes you beautiful is in your eyes.

Now some may prize the form of beauty
That’s been sized up by men,
Paraded and rated
On a scale from one to ten.
Don’t they know that there’s no contest
For the Fairest of the Fair?
‘Cause the thing that makes you beautiful is beyond compare,
Oh, the thing that makes you beautiful is beyond compare.

And there are those who say that beauty
Is the flower of a day,
That it blooms in youth only,
And with age will fade away;
But enduring as diamonds,
More shining than gold,
The thing that makes you beautiful cannot grow old.
Oh, the thing that makes you beautiful cannot grow old.

So if there’s ever any question,
If you get to feeling dull and old,
Won’t you let me be your mirror
Where the truth is always told.
In the eye of this beholder
You’re a bright and shining star,
‘Cause the thing that makes you beautiful is the way you are,
Oh, the thing that makes you beautiful is just the way you are.