Guys and Dolls: Tsunami - Beauty Pt.II (28 May 1993)

 

Buy this at Discogs

Distributed as part of a 4 track EP on Simple Machines called Inclined Plane, which showcased the label owners’ band, Tsunami alongside 3 other bands (Superchunk, Rodan and Unrest), Beauty Pt. II is another track from this 28/5/93 show which takes jealousy of a popular girl as its theme - we were here with Picasso Trigger’s song, Queenie, a few posts ago.  However, the reasons for the jealousy in Beauty Pt. II may be more related to bitterness towards a former lover/crush than because of the anger at being ghosted by a friend you helped raise up to alpha status, as was the case in Queenie.

I’m running with the bitter romance angle mainly because Beauty Pt. II was originally recorded by the male, New York band, Flower, for their 1990 album, Hologram Sky. Because the vocals, in both versions, are quite muted - at least until the final 30 seconds, it’s easy on initial listens to miss just how rancorous the singer(s) mood is:

I want to watch her fall/See her change, see her fall.

Furthermore, the following line - I touch a piece of her/Reminds me of what I’ve learnt - implies that the fallout from this relationship is going to be spread around, making Beauty Pt. II into one of those chain reaction heartache songs i.e. “they hurt me, so now I’m going to hurt others.” Had it been Reminds me of what I’ve lost that would transform the narrator from avenger to victim.

If there’s one thing sustaining our narrator though, it’s that ongoing trope of seeing someone getting swamped in attention and it causing them to unravel as they have to keep so many hearts on a string that eventually they start forgetting which lie they’ve told:

She is a superstar/Falling fast, falling hard.

She’s shooting through the sky/Cool and hot, she’s gonna die*.

There isn’t a great deal to choose between the two versions, Tsunami’s is moderately faster, though I’ve found myself listening to Flower’s version more, possibly because it might be being sung by Ian James, who would go on to be a founding member of Cell. Where they diverge is in the thrashy outro that forms the last movement of the track. On Flower’s version it sounds like they’re screaming, I’ve got a gun in the car on three of the four refrains, before ending with One, two, three four, which Tsunami use throughout the last 35 seconds - though one of the women eventually melds this into something I can’t quite make out in counterpoint to it. Regardless, it causes a song called Beauty Pt. II to end on a rather ugly note.

A look at the John Peel wiki suggests that Peel only played two of the tracks on Inclined Plane. Three weeks before playing Beauty Pt. II, he had included Darjeeling by Rodan. This blog didn’t cover that show, but I would have probably passed on it. Of the others, I would have very likely included Winona Ryder by Unrest, which was an updated reworking of Debbie Harry by Family Fodder. Superchunk’s tune, Baxter, would have been a borderline choice.

Tsunami possibly owed their place on this show’s playlist to Peel having seen them play in the week at The Wilde Club in Norwich. He had enjoyed both the music and their onstage manner, so much so that he had sent them a note inviting them to meet him for a lunchtime drink in Great Finborough, the following day. They hadn’t taken him up on the offer, and we don’t know whether they were as un-nerved at the prospect of having a drink with Peel as Mark Arm had been.

The original version of Beauty Pt.II by Flower.

*There is a potential drug subtext in these lyrics too, in which case the song could be read as relief at having escaped a damaging relationship.

Video courtesy of Brooks Wyrick (Tsunami) and Famous or Forgotten Music (Flower).

All lyrics are copyright of Flower.