She's a Beauty
| "She's a Beauty" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Single by The Tubes | |
| from the album Outside Inside | |
| B-side | "When You're Ready to Come" |
| Released | April 1983 |
| Genre | Rock, hard rock |
| Length | 3:55 |
| Label | Capitol |
| Writer(s) | Fee Waybill, David Foster and Steve Lukather |
| Producer(s) | David Foster |
"She's a Beauty" is a song by American rock band The Tubes. Released in 1983 on The Tubes' album Outside Inside from Capitol Records, the song became the band's biggest hit. It went to number 10 on the Billboard U.S. Hot 100 list, and number 1 on the Billboard U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks list which charts the frequency of songs played on mainstream rock stations.
"She's a Beauty" is Track 1 on Side 1 of the Outside Inside LP, on which it runs 4:01 minutes long. It is Side A on the single; the B-side is a non-album track, "When You're Ready to Come".
Music video
The popularity of "She's a Beauty" was largely driven by a narrative music video [1] that became a staple of then-fledgling MTV. This video was directed by Kenny Ortega, also the choreographer of The Tubes' stage shows. Ortega achieved greater success choreographing movies such as Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and as a director with High School Musical and its sequels.
In the video, The Tubes' lead singer Fee Waybill plays a carnival barker who extols a crowd with the virtues of a sideshow attraction:
- Step right up and don't be shy
- Because you will not believe your eyes
- She's right here, behind the glass
- And you're gonna like her
- 'Cause she's got class.
He takes money from a young boy who then rides a carnival car through hallucinogenic scenes of a mermaid, female trapeze artist, prehistoric women dressed in furs, and others. The recurring theme is that he is attracted but is unable to reach them. At the end of the video we see the boy exiting the ride aged to an old man, the message apparently being the financial and emotional cost of falling in love with but being unable to obtain his heart's desire.
The role of the young boy was the first acting job for 13-year-old Robert Arquette, who later became Alexis Arquette.[2]
Inspiration
"She's a Beauty" was co-written by Fee Waybill, producer David Foster and Steve Lukather. Waybill says the song was originally inspired when he passed a booth on a San Francisco street outside a peep show, the booth being marked with a sign reading "Pay A Dollar, Talk to a Naked Girl", and the frustrating conversation that ensued between him and the woman inside the booth.[3] Thus the lines in the song, "She'll give you every penny's worth/but it will cost you a dollar first."
References
- ↑ Music video for "She's a Beauty" at YouTube.
- ↑ Lee, Chris (1998). "Interview with Alexis Arquette". indexmagazine.com. Archived from the original on April 15, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
- ↑ The Tubes perform "She's a Beauty", YouTube, Wildhorse Saloon, Nashville, Tennessee, 13 June 2008. Fee Waybill gives a three-minute introduction into the origins of the song.