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
Format 7″ single
Genre
Length 3:55
Label Capitol
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) David Foster
The Tubes singles chronology
"The Monkey Time"
(1983)		 "She's a Beauty"
(1983)		 "Tip of My Tongue"
(1983)

"The Monkey Time"
(1983)		 "She's a Beauty"
(1983)		 "Tip of My Tongue"
(1983)

"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 U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and number one on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks chart which charts the frequency of songs played on mainstream rock stations.

"She's a Beauty" is track one on side one of the Outside Inside LP, on which it runs 4:01. It is side A on the single; the B-side is a non-album track, "When You're Ready to Come."

Composition

The song is performed in the key of D major in common time with a tempo of 111 beats per minute.[1] The group's vocals span from A4 to D6 in the song.[2]

Music video

The popularity of "She's a Beauty" was largely driven by a narrative music video[3] 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 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 Alexis Arquette.[4]

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.[5] Thus the lines in the song, "She'll give you every penny's worth/but it will cost you a dollar first."

Charts

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Spot On Track - The Spotify Tracker". www.spotontrack.com. Retrieved 2017-12-29.
  2. ↑ Spooner, Bill. "The Tubes "She's a Beauty" Sheet Music in D Major - Download & Print". Musicnotes.com. Retrieved 2017-12-29.
  3. ↑ Music video for "She's a Beauty" at YouTube.
  4. ↑ Lee, Chris (1998). "Interview with Alexis Arquette". indexmagazine.com. Archived from the original on April 15, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-05.
  5. ↑ 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.
  6. ↑ Hung, Steffen. "australian-charts.com - The Tubes - She's A Beauty". australian-charts.com. Retrieved 2017-12-29.
  7. ↑ "she's-a-beauty | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". Retrieved 2017-12-29.
  8. ↑ "Top 100 Songs of 1983 - Billboard Year End Charts". Bob Borst's Home of Pop Culture. Retrieved 2017-12-29.
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