Post by Julie on Mar 21, 2005 10:36:12 GMT -5
Beauty Queen
She's a Beauty Queen
my sweet bean bag in the street
take it
down out to the laundry scene
don't know why she's in my hand
can't figure what it is
but I lie again
I think this song is about the concept of being a beauty queen or in a Miss America pagient. The fact that the only judgment is their looks. They will never be anything else but a pretty face and that is scary.
Here's Tori's description of it:
"The wholeness. The record [Boys For Pele] starts off with the horses from Winter taking us and we ride. Going into that program of the beauty queen. She's a beauty queen, and that's not enough because it never is. The idea that beauty is our answer when we are four years old, oh, isn't she pretty... that's the first thing that you hear. So it's going after those programs of the feminine, going after them, going after them."
-- Tori; B Side, 05/96
"I want to capture the frequency. When you hear Beauty Queen, you are hearing this girl in that moment: She’s standing in that bathroom, watching those girls put on that lipstick. I don’t want us to be talking to her 15 minutes later about what she realized in that bathroom. I want her to go back to that moment in the bathroom: It’s white. It’s that funny fluorescent light. It’s that tile, with the green crud in between. It’s those old toilets with the beautiful handles. You can hear the sound of the water dripping. Time doesn’t exist in that moment. I wanted you to feel that kind of swimming, where you’re almost coming back from 15 feet under water, and you’re coming up, and you’re almost up. That’s what it’s like in that bathroom, when you’re looking and you’re realizing what’s really going on at your table. That’s what I want to catch. This is not a confident girl. You are not at acceptance level. You are in her brain, getting triggered. The little windshield wipers are going, and you’re starting to see it from the other side. [You want to bring that moment...] ...always onto the tape. Every time you hear it, that girl is in the bathroom, putting on that lipstick. Every time."
-- Tori; Musician, May 1996
"It was a church in Delgany. And they had built this structure where I would go into and there were holes in the structure...only holes that would fit the keys of the Bösey and the double manual of the harpsichord and everything else was sealed up...except my pedals of course came in but everything around them...it was sealed, so that the sound...again, the instruments could work completely off the ambiance of the church and my vocal wasn't drivin' down those microphones. So I knew that "Horses" was coming and I knew that I had to get a Leslie, so finally this rickety-rackety thing gets brought in, and we had to put it out in the graveyard because we couldn't fit it anywhere in the church without it interfering so they miced it up in the graveyard and they had little blankets over the mic cause of the wind and the rain. And Beauty Queen and Horses came in one take. It was all done as you hear it, live with the pedal of the Leslie."
-- Tori; The World Café WXPN, Mar 1, 1996
“Well, I felt the day that this song [Horses] was coming -- I’m talking about the recording part now [not the writing] -- that I knew a Leslie needed to come in there. And I talked about it with my live guys -- my live guys were very important on this record -- and I said, “I think I’m feeling Leslie,” and so they said, “Well, give us a couple days,” and I said, “No, no. I think I’m feeling it by four o’clock.” And we were in County Wicklow, which means we had to go to Dublin or we had to fly one in from London. But we did get one from Dublin and it was probably the oldest Leslie in Ireland (laughs)... Leslie cabinet, and they brought it in and part of it wasn’t working which was just fine. But they set it up in my little box cause I recorded in a... I was in a little box while the instruments were opened up to the church... It was a church in Delgany. And they had built this structure where I would go into and there were holes in the structure... only holes that would fit the keys of the Bösey and the double manual of the harpsichord and everything else was sealed up, except my pedals of course came in but everything around them... it was sealed, so that the sound... again, the instruments could work completely off the ambiance of the church and my vocal wasn’t drivin’ down those microphones. So I knew that “Horses” was coming and I knew that I had to get a Leslie, so finally this rickety-rackety thing gets brought in, and we had to put it out in the graveyard because we couldn’t fit it anywhere in the church without it interfering so they miced it up in the graveyard and they had little blankets over the mic cause of the wind and the rain. And “Beauty Queen” and “Horses” came in one take. It was all done as you hear it, live with the pedal of the Leslie.” [World Café (radio) – March 1, 1996]
“We couldn’t go to Blood Roses, who we needed to go to first, because she’s the one that is crawling on her knees, and has given it all away just to be accepted. And has gotten defecated on to the point where she’s in the middle of the stench going, ‘How could I have let myself be so degraded, how could I have degraded myself by letting certain events happen. But we had to go to her, we had to travel. And it was very important that Beauty Queen/Horses took us there.” [World Café (radio) – March 1, 1996]
: Heaven - Lamb
She's a Beauty Queen
my sweet bean bag in the street
take it
down out to the laundry scene
don't know why she's in my hand
can't figure what it is
but I lie again
I think this song is about the concept of being a beauty queen or in a Miss America pagient. The fact that the only judgment is their looks. They will never be anything else but a pretty face and that is scary.
Here's Tori's description of it:
"The wholeness. The record [Boys For Pele] starts off with the horses from Winter taking us and we ride. Going into that program of the beauty queen. She's a beauty queen, and that's not enough because it never is. The idea that beauty is our answer when we are four years old, oh, isn't she pretty... that's the first thing that you hear. So it's going after those programs of the feminine, going after them, going after them."
-- Tori; B Side, 05/96
"I want to capture the frequency. When you hear Beauty Queen, you are hearing this girl in that moment: She’s standing in that bathroom, watching those girls put on that lipstick. I don’t want us to be talking to her 15 minutes later about what she realized in that bathroom. I want her to go back to that moment in the bathroom: It’s white. It’s that funny fluorescent light. It’s that tile, with the green crud in between. It’s those old toilets with the beautiful handles. You can hear the sound of the water dripping. Time doesn’t exist in that moment. I wanted you to feel that kind of swimming, where you’re almost coming back from 15 feet under water, and you’re coming up, and you’re almost up. That’s what it’s like in that bathroom, when you’re looking and you’re realizing what’s really going on at your table. That’s what I want to catch. This is not a confident girl. You are not at acceptance level. You are in her brain, getting triggered. The little windshield wipers are going, and you’re starting to see it from the other side. [You want to bring that moment...] ...always onto the tape. Every time you hear it, that girl is in the bathroom, putting on that lipstick. Every time."
-- Tori; Musician, May 1996
"It was a church in Delgany. And they had built this structure where I would go into and there were holes in the structure...only holes that would fit the keys of the Bösey and the double manual of the harpsichord and everything else was sealed up...except my pedals of course came in but everything around them...it was sealed, so that the sound...again, the instruments could work completely off the ambiance of the church and my vocal wasn't drivin' down those microphones. So I knew that "Horses" was coming and I knew that I had to get a Leslie, so finally this rickety-rackety thing gets brought in, and we had to put it out in the graveyard because we couldn't fit it anywhere in the church without it interfering so they miced it up in the graveyard and they had little blankets over the mic cause of the wind and the rain. And Beauty Queen and Horses came in one take. It was all done as you hear it, live with the pedal of the Leslie."
-- Tori; The World Café WXPN, Mar 1, 1996
“Well, I felt the day that this song [Horses] was coming -- I’m talking about the recording part now [not the writing] -- that I knew a Leslie needed to come in there. And I talked about it with my live guys -- my live guys were very important on this record -- and I said, “I think I’m feeling Leslie,” and so they said, “Well, give us a couple days,” and I said, “No, no. I think I’m feeling it by four o’clock.” And we were in County Wicklow, which means we had to go to Dublin or we had to fly one in from London. But we did get one from Dublin and it was probably the oldest Leslie in Ireland (laughs)... Leslie cabinet, and they brought it in and part of it wasn’t working which was just fine. But they set it up in my little box cause I recorded in a... I was in a little box while the instruments were opened up to the church... It was a church in Delgany. And they had built this structure where I would go into and there were holes in the structure... only holes that would fit the keys of the Bösey and the double manual of the harpsichord and everything else was sealed up, except my pedals of course came in but everything around them... it was sealed, so that the sound... again, the instruments could work completely off the ambiance of the church and my vocal wasn’t drivin’ down those microphones. So I knew that “Horses” was coming and I knew that I had to get a Leslie, so finally this rickety-rackety thing gets brought in, and we had to put it out in the graveyard because we couldn’t fit it anywhere in the church without it interfering so they miced it up in the graveyard and they had little blankets over the mic cause of the wind and the rain. And “Beauty Queen” and “Horses” came in one take. It was all done as you hear it, live with the pedal of the Leslie.” [World Café (radio) – March 1, 1996]
“We couldn’t go to Blood Roses, who we needed to go to first, because she’s the one that is crawling on her knees, and has given it all away just to be accepted. And has gotten defecated on to the point where she’s in the middle of the stench going, ‘How could I have let myself be so degraded, how could I have degraded myself by letting certain events happen. But we had to go to her, we had to travel. And it was very important that Beauty Queen/Horses took us there.” [World Café (radio) – March 1, 1996]
: Heaven - Lamb
