The Tubes: She's A Beauty

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.
You can look inside another world.
You get to talk to a pretty girl.
She's everything you dream about...
but don't fall in love...
She's a beauty ---
one in a million girls,
she's a beauty.
Why would I lie?
Why would I lie?
You can say anything you like,
but you can't touch the merchandise.
She'll give you every pennies worth,
but it will cost you a dollar first.
You can step outside your little world.
You can talk to a pretty girl.
She's everything you dream about...
but don't fall in love...
She's a beauty ---
one in a million girls,
she's a beauty.
Why would I lie?
Why would I lie?


References

Wikipedia: The Tubes
The Tubes are a San Francisco-based rock band, whose 1975 debut album included the hit single, "White Punks on Dope". During its first fifteen years or so, the band's live performances combined quasi-pornography with wild satires of media, consumerism, and politics.

Wikipedia: She's A Beauty

"She's a Beauty" is a song by San Francisco based rock band The Tubes. The song was released in 1983 on The Tubes' Outside Inside LP from Capitol Records, and became the band's biggest hit. It went to number 10 on the 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.
...
The popularity of "She's a Beauty" was largely driven by a very inventive, provocative video that became a staple of then-fledgling MTV. This video was directed by the choreographer of The Tubes' famous stage shows, Kenny Ortega, who has since gone on to great success choreographing movies such as Dirty Dancing and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
...
In the video, The Tubes' lead singer Fee Waybill (real name John Waldo 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, etc., the recurring theme being 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 a stripper, prostitute or other type of sex worker.
...
Waybill says the song was originally inspired when he passed a booth on a San Francisco street outside a massage parlor, the booth marked with a sign reading "Talk to a Naked Woman for a Dollar", and the frustrating conversation that ensued between him and the woman inside the booth. Thus the lines in the song, "She'll give you every pennies' worth/but it will cost you a dollar first."

2011-03-10

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