Songfacts®:

• The Soup Dragons are a Scottish band, but their frontman Sean Dickson was always fascinated with American culture, particularly in New York City. When he lived there for a spell in the early '90s, Dickson spent a lot of time with drag queens and in gay clubs. He became a huge fan of the performer Divine, and wrote "Divine Thing" in his honor.
  
  "If you listen to the lyrics it's plainly about him, and his beauty freak iconic culture," he said in a Songfacts interview.
• The Soup Dragons scored a big European hit in 1990 with "I'm Free," a cover of a once-obscure Rolling Stones song. "Divine Thing" was their biggest American hit, earning airplay on MTV and on radio stations with Modern Rock or Alternative formats. Their next single, "Pleasure," reached #69, but that was their last chart appearance.
  
  Sean Dickson formed a group called The High Fidelity, which was active until 2001, when he came out as gay, had a breakdown and stopped making music. Moving to London, he became a popular DJ, and in 2016 he released an album as Hifi Sean called Ft. ("featuring"). His Crystal Waters collaboration from the set, "Testify," was a #1 Dance hit in America.
• The phrase "divine thing" (Girl... you are one divine thing!) became a popular drag queen expression in wake of this song.
• Nick Egan directed the video, which was nominated for Best Altenative Video at the MTV Video Music Awards. Sean Dickson said: "The video that Nick Egan created was so groundbreaking as it captured early '90s New York City club culture, with club kids from Jackie 60 and some of the other Meat Packing District underground nightlife scene. It was also the first music video with transgender and drag culture to ever be given full daytime rotation all over the USA. I used to get great joy out of how subversive that video was to many kids in small towns across the land."