Defend the Indefensible: "She's a Beauty" by The Tubes

I mean, this song is unintentionally funny, right?

I know next to nothing about this band, BUT: a friend of mine had an extra ticket to see them earlier this year and I went. Weirdest show I've ever been to, I think, but they struck me as being VERY tongue in cheek, in an almost Zappa-y way. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was intentionally funny.

Not going to defend the song, though. I do not really like it.

this is actually a good question! because the song kinda sucks ass.

one in a million goils

I love this song b/c of silly memories (like hearing it blasting while I rode the Himalaya at the Florida State Fair). I love the riffs (guitar and synth). Also it was co-written with Steve Lukather of TOTO and David Foster, who acc. to Wiki is "noted for discovering singers, Celine Dion, Josh Groban and Michael Bublé".

I remember the video being a little confusing at the time (I was 8 so even Manimal was confusing at the time) but watching it this morning I see that it really is pretty weird; note in particular the boy trapped in the chair by the masked woman (8 years old-ish?) puncturing the sheath (!) only to find a little girl in a pink tutu. That's a pretty good depiction of my pre-adolescent understanding of sex, actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBWrMxyR9R4

hated this song even in its era. was 15 when it came out and mtv played almost constantly for months on end (or so it seemed). hate the lyrics, the hook, the singing, the riffs, the synth & guitar tones: EVERYTHING about it. plus have gone back subsequently and tried to like other tubes with no success. so i think they're just bad.

the fact that the band had a famously nude/lewd stage show was big talk in jr high

I'll defend it. I listen to classic rock all the time and believe me there are hundreds of other staples that are more offensive. I think the problem is that people associate it with the video and MTV.

Haha, I had no idea that this song was by the Tubes. Only thing of theirs that I could have positively identified is 'White Punks On Dope', which is about 1000x better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP8nGNbk7oQ

"you can't touch the merchandise"....of course it is funny. So eighties.

The Tubes were great. "She's a Beauty" sure smelled like a sellout, but they deserved to get paid.

Henry S. OTM.

I agree, they deserved a big hit. In all honesty, I am picky and it doesn't grate like a lot of early eighties commercial pop rock.

srsly what's not to like about a song from carny barker pov that gets the tubes paid?

ps talk to ya later is classic

i know next to nothing about the tubes and find that white punks on dope an interesting puree of the 20th century rock aesthetic. im pretty sure i dont completely get it

Loved this song when it came out, love it now. It never occurred to me that there were people who didn't like it, actually! Not sure I think it's funny, unintentionally or otherwise. It just seems like one of the many Tubes songs that shine a light on the essential mild creepiness of some standard rock and roll trope by turning the creepiness knob all the way up. (See "Mr. Hate," which I don't actually think is a good song, but which I kind of grudgingly respect for sacrificing its dignity to produce a desired effect.)

And to tell the truth I just like the way it sounds -- the opening of this, before the lyrics kick in, is exactly what I want big 80s hard rock to sound like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxzaAYclaFo

(x-post) "Talk To Ya Later" is indeed classic; don't think I can say the same about the big power ballad "Don't Want To Wait Anymore." As a huge fan of all of the A&M records this album surely WAS a commercial slickening-up. I've pretty much always loathed Toto, but countless in-store plays when I worked a a record shop, plus seeing the accompanying Completion Backward Tour, finally got me to like it. It's no "White Punks On Dope," though.

How I knew this song is from Muzak when I worked at Kinko's; it came on 2x during every shift as Muzak plays all the songs on a four-hour loop. This meant two times a day I got to spend four minutes a day thinking about this guy's identity in re: some stripper. It reminds me of "Take It Easy" by the Eagles insofar as:
– I had to hear it all the freaking time (both of these songs were like knowing a shitty regular's gonna show up at the counter twice a day)
– Ineffably bland but memorable enough to get stuck in a head alla time
– Totally embarrassing lyrics occasionally made borderline tolerable by being epically, comically embarrassing ('a girl looked at him, better write a song about that particular first'/'are you going to show her the dollar first, or actually give it to the lady?')

Also as a chick falling in love with strippers has never been an issue or even a potential issue. I admit I'm not particularly predisposed to sympathize with that particular problem, and he's not really selling me that I should care. IMO his voice isn't really projecting much of an affect, just bravado, and I can't tell if he's supposed to be heartbroken or horny or 'nudge nudge wink wink' or something else entirely.

I still listen to the Remote Control LP all the time. (The Tubes taped a Hollywood Squares episode to promote the record. The Tubes got it.)

Actually his voice has a tinge of dread at "You get to TALK to a PRETTY GIRL!" which just confuses things ever more.

Fee Waybill's voice has always been the Tubes' achilles heel. They came from a theatrical background, and made the most with what they had. (He did increase his range somewhat, by the time they became FM staples. Or maybe they just had access to more sophisticated recording equipment.)

I won "Young and Rich" on a radio phone in.

Also as a chick falling in love with strippers has never been an issue or even a potential issue.

But the song isn't about falling in love with strippers! It's about having your source of income be GETTING people to fall in love with strippers, which in some reasonably general sense describes a lot of people, including some women.

I think your reading of the song is more informed by the video than mine, maybe? Bcz I'm not feeling it.

See I always thought the narrator was just some strip club patron dude who enjoys spending his time & $$$ there, explaining to all his peers not to fall in love w/this one particular stripper who is especially awesome.

nope i'm with eephus pretty clearly the voice of a barker

i like this song and i think i even had the 45. not sure if "funny" is the right word, more like cheeky. it was risqué in a very '80s top-40 way (see also "centerfold," "she bop," "little red corvette," etc). and it had at least one obvious antecedent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tByhkaVcyE

(can't find a clip for the coasters' recording, which is the key one)

yeah i always think of this as coming from the same factory that pooped out centerfold

I hate that song even more than this one!

I've never seen the video, actually -- my read is totally based on the song. Also, I like "Centerfold" too, but I think that stance is less defensible than my endorsement of "She's a Beauty."

I think that reading did not occur to me bcz I am apparently unimaginative & did not think a busker wld be shilling for a stripper. It makes sense tho.

The reading that the narrator is a busker is the "it" that makes sense in my previous sentence.

i never thought it was carny barker specific, i thot was just a video. otoh i always knew rio was about guys on yachts

beauty's narrator is personified as a sideshow barker (both in the lyrics & the vid) but i always saw that as a metaphor for the commercial lure of women as sex objects. in magazines, pop videos, and yeah more literally in strip clubs. repeated "why would i lie?" pretty clearly announces the subversive intent. still don't like the song.

gotta pull back my blanket dismissal far enough to allow room for talk to ya later tho - that one rules.

My take was always that the song identified beauty and homeliness as basically the same thing, i.e. a truly, unimpeachably beautiful person is as far from the "norm" as the Elephant Man...they're both freaks (not like us), hence the "freak show" exhibit of Beauty...

repeated "why would i lie?" pretty clearly announces the subversive intent.

Ah see I thought he was saying "What would I like?" which tbh made no sense but fit with the general commercial transaction theme of the whole thing.

Now I kind of want to hear the version of this song Abbott hears. It does sound kind of indefensible though.

Yeah I am surprised how much the concept of this thread worked here – I have lost a lot of snideness & anger I had just yesterday ago toward this song.

I remember the video being a little confusing at the time (I was 8 so even Manimal was confusing at the time) but watching it this morning I see that it really is pretty weird; note in particular the boy trapped in the chair by the masked woman (8 years old-ish?) puncturing the sheath (!) only to find a little girl in a pink tutu. That's a pretty good depiction of my pre-adolescent understanding of sex, actually.

imagine if you had only seen the unedited version that showed the bass drum decals and the sheath (?) which featured images of breasts.

repeated "why would i lie?" pretty clearly announces the subversive intent. still don't like the song.

haha I can totally get with this. I don't find it indefensible so much as kinda boring and o btw not really that subversize either.

however, it bears repeating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dF2WcrdxdQ

Centerfold is the BOMB!

I understand where you detractors are coming from. The song probably sucked when it was on MTV and the radio all the time. I remember those days, when you wanted to see something different but they played the same video over and over. Without the video though, the song is cheeky and fun.

i don't think i've ever seen the video! song must have been played at a thousand minor-league hockey games tho, so: classic

I'm glad that The Tubes (and "Centerfold", for that matter) are getting this much yap.

By the way, just to be different, I don't like "Talk To Ya Later" -- I feel like this and much of the rest of the Completion Backward Principle are kind of boring "why chicks gotta be that way" hoo-ha in a way that "She's a Beauty" is not. Exhibit A, the just plain gross "Sushi Girl."

Re Styles getting forgotten in this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCp6Tc1Ph0w

Thank you for reminding us of the glory of The Tubes! I love The Tubes, and I love this song, and I want the world to know it. I love 'Talk To Ya Later,' and 'Sushi Girl,' and 'She's A Beauty,' and 'Smoke,' and 'White Punks On Dope,' and 'Young And Rich,' and many, many more. I love their 'real' songss and their 'sellout' songs.

this video and Golden Earing's Twilight Zone represent a very specific era of MTV and my childhood for me.

"imagine if you had only seen the unedited version that showed the bass drum decals and the sheath (?) which featured images of breasts."

whoa, I'd never seen this version...until just now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ_k_VG6Syc

How do they get that sound on the guitar at the very beginning of this song? Where it's just the same note played over and over again but the TONE of the note is different each time.

Probably just some production effects and/or more than one guitar.

Very Who-like.