Sunday, March 02, 2014

In 1934

a group called the Trinidadian Calypsonian Roaring Lion, recorded a song called "Ugly Woman". No, I do not remember that recording, just read about it. But, in 1963,a fellow named Jimmy Soul adapted the old song a bit and retitled it "If You Wanna Be Happy". Jimmy sang,

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life,
Never make a pretty woman your wife,
So from my personal point of view,
Get an ugly girl to marry you.

The point of the lyric being, no one will try to steal an ugly girl.

But, of course, there is no such thing as an ugly girl. As Only In America author Harry Golden, "The Carolina Israelite" explained, the beauty of a woman is in the eye of a man. If a man loves a woman, she is beautiful. It doesn't matter what others see.

Then, again, everyone is beautiful in some way. Ray Stevens sang it, in 1971,

"And everybody's beautiful in their own way.
Under God's heaven, the world's gonna find the way."

I suppose you could also say everyone is ugly to someone. Watching TV recently, my wife suddenly remarked "That is the ugliest woman!". Oh! I hadn't noticed.

Depends on what you are conditioned to look for. If you are troubled by the size and shape of your own nose (which I am), and suddenly see someone's nose with an even more exaggerated size and shape, you think ugly.

Towards the end of Jimmy Soul's recording, a brief dialogue takes place between Soul and a backup singer, "Hey baby"/ "I saw your wife the other day."/ "Yeah??"/ "Yeah, and she's ugly-y-y-y-y!!!"/ "Yeah, she's ugly, but she sure can cook, baby"

There are other ways to be beautiful.

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