RockyMusic

This 7" single released in both the U.K. and Australia was Little Nell's third (and as it turned out...last) single. Unlike her previous two singles (Fever and The Musical World of Little Nell), this one was not released by A&M Records. It was actually recorded as a theme song for a film entitled "The Alternative Miss World" (or I Wanna Be A Beauty Queen in its video release). Nell performs this song during the introduction for the movie, dancing around in a swimsuit as per usual. You can see several pictures of this on the front cover. Note however that Little Nell's part was actually recorded completely separate from the rest of the film, which was basically a documentary of the real-life Alternative Miss World pageant that year (Little Nell did not attend).

One thing that IS similar to her previous two singles though is Richard Hartley's involvement as songwriter. Richard Hartley was one of the creators of the original Rocky Horror Show (and then later TRHPS), and was credited with co-writing ALL of Little Nell's songs on all three singles except for 'Fever' which was a cover song. Also be sure to notice that, just like 'See You Round Like A Record' from her Fever single, Little Nell is credited as co-writer of 'Beauty Queen' along with Richard Hartley. Brian Thomson, one of the other creators of the original Rocky Horror Show who was also involved in Little Nell's previous two singles, is however nowhere to be found on this single.

In the late seventies, the Alternative Miss World pageant was put on in London the same night as the REAL Miss World pageant. It was the put on each year by Andrew Logan, who was apparently like the Andy Warhol of London in that time period. The basis for the pageant was that the contestants should each have the most shocking and original costumes possible. It started out as being primarily a drag queen pageant but more and more women had been entering each year, so when this documentary was filmed there were actually quite a few women in the contest in addition to all the queens. You can see pictures of nine of the contestants along with a picture in the center of Andrew Logan himself (in his astoundingly good half-man / half-woman costume!) on the back cover. The contest was hosted by Andrew Logan as usual, along with special guest Divine.

There is actually a rather amusing story about Divine's involvement with this movie that I read in his biography, Not Simply Divine. Divine had met Andrew Logan one year when he was in London for a while performing, and they became very good friends. So when Andrew Logan was putting on his Alternative Miss World pageant this particular year, he mailed Divine plane tickets to London so that he could be in it. Unfortunately though, Divine had a very bad bout of flu during his visit and ended up just being heavily sedated while actually at the pageant. Andrew Logan wasn't paying Divine anything to be in it, so Divine didn't think it would matter much if he was dreadful and not the outrageous personality everyone was expecting. Besides which, Divine simply had no idea they were filming it at the time! Divine did not actually find out that he was in this movie until next year when Andrew Logan again mailed him plane tickets to London, this time so that he could attend the premiere of the movie. Divine had been so heavily under the influence of the drugs he was taking to fight the flu at the time, that he still had no recollection of the event being filmed. At any rate, the morning after the film's premiere in London Divine met with Andrew Logan and some business colleagues as they discussed worldwide film release. Divine's personal manager put a damper on things though by spelling out to them that since Divine had never been made aware of his contribution to the movie and that since Divine was a member of the British actor's union, they were in no legal position to negotiate any distribution deals without first obtaining Divine's written agreement to his appearance in the film. They were all flabbergasted and begged Divine to let them release the film since he was their friend, but Divine simply responded by continuing to butter his toast and eat. Divine's personal manager was able to eventually agree with them on a $5,000 appearance fee with no ongoing royalties in exchange for not taking out an injunction against all further screenings. That's it, but I thought it was quite amusing that Divine did not even know he was going to be in this movie at the time...:-)

One interesting thing is on the actual vinyl record, in the inner groove that usually has identification numbers pressed into it. Side A says "A GREAT FILM ANDREW", which is pretty self-explanatory as long as you know that Andrew Logan was the creator of the whole thing. Side B then says "BUY SOME FOR LULU", which is a bit more obscure unless you happen to notice that Andrew Logan's secretary in the film (who gives him contestant lists and such) is named Lulu. One other interesting reference during the actual film is when the narrator notices that "Malcolm of Rocky Horror Show fame" is in attendance and zooms in on him. I am assuming they are actually talking about Christopher Malcolm, who was the original Brad Majors from the 1973 London Cast and now controls the rights for The Rocky Horror Show throughout the U.K.

The faster version of "Beauty Queen" was released on CD as part of the Songs from the Vaults CD in the 15th Anniversary Box Set. It is however a remixed version of the original, which was recorded with Little Nell's vocals on the left side and the music on the right (i.e. completely separated, sometimes known as 'true stereo'). The version of the song released on Songs from the Vaults was remixed to make it sound more 'normal'. The slower version of "Beauty Queen" has not as of yet been officially released on CD. It was however pressed onto the bootleg Dark Refrains CD directly from the original 45, as well as the bootleg Bride of Rocky Rarities CD.

UK ©1980 Charisma Records Ltd. (PRE 004)
Released by Charisma Records Ltd.
Picture sleeve.

Australia ©1980 Charisma Records Ltd. (6000648)
Released by PolyGram Records Pty Ltd.

Side A

1. Beauty Queen - 280 kbps stereo MP3 sound file and song lyrics available.

Side B

1. Beauty Queen (Slow Version) - 232 kbps stereo MP3 sound file and song lyrics available.

Written by Richard Hartley and Little Nell
Design by D.J. & Kev
Cover scene from the James Street production "The Alternative Miss World"

PRE
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