The Beautiful South were a British pop group formed in 1989, from the ashes… Read Full Bio ↴The Beautiful South were a British pop group formed in 1989, from the ashes of Hull, England group The Housemartins. The band was put together by lead singer, Paul Heaton, and drummer, Dave Hemingway. They were joined by Sean Welch (Bass), Dave Stead (Drums) and Dave Rotheray (Guitar). Rotheray also co-writes the songs with Heaton.

In The Beautiful South, Heaton shared the lead singer's role with Hemingway and female singer Briana Corrigan to create a trio of lead vocalists. This set-up helped to characterise the bittersweet kitchen sink dramas played out in Heaton's often-barbed songs.

The band's music might sound like bubbly, catchy, lightweight pop but Heaton's sour, savage and amusing worldview on everything and anything (alcoholism, religion, sex, politics and, mostly, the down side of relationships) is always lurking beneath the surface of the quirky melodies. The tastes and smells of the local pub are never far away either, with the band gaining a reputation for boozing. The band's first album was Welcome to the Beautiful South (1989) and spawned the hits Song For Whoever and You Keep It All In. The release of 1990's Choke album saw the band claim its only Number 1 hit to date, A Little Time. 0898 followed in 1992, with hits including Old Red Eyes Is Back.

In 1994, after Corrigan quit the band when she saw Paul's lyrics for the forthcoming album Miaow, St Helens supermarket shelf-stacker, Jacqui Abbott, was brought on board to fill in. Heaton had heard her sing at an after show party in St Helens and remembered her vocal talents.

Jacqui's first album with the band was Miaow in 1994. Hits included Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud) and a cover of Fred Neil's Everybody's Talking, previously popularised by Harry Nilsson. The end of that year saw the release of Carry on up the Charts, a "best of" compilation consisting of the singles to date plus new track One Last Love Song. The album was massively successful and it is said that 1 in 7 homes in the UK owns a copy.

Blue Is the Colour (1996), Quench (1998) and Painting It Red (2000) followed with varying success. Jacqui also quit the band in 2000. After a second Greatest Hits album Solid Bronze in 2001, they recorded Gaze in 2003 with yet another female vocalist, Alison 'Lady' Wheeler. Wheeler was still in place for 2004's Golddiggas, Headnodders and Pholk Songs, an album of unusually arranged cover versions including Livin' Thing, You're The One That I Want, Don't Fear The Reaper and I'm Stone In Love With You. In 2006 the band released their tenth studio album, Superbi.

The band broke up in January 2007, releasing the statement: "The Beautiful South have split up due to musical similarities. The band would like to thank everyone for their 19 wonderful years in music."

Former members of the group have since played Beautiful South songs together as 'New Beautiful South' and more recently 'The South'.

In 2007, Mercury Records released Soup: The Best of The Housemartins and The Beautiful South, a compilation album containing 7 hit singles by The Housemartins ("The Housemartins Condensed") and 15 tracks The Beautiful South ("Cream of The Beautiful South").

Dumb
The Beautiful South Lyrics

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It doesn't take a mathematician
To add a simple sum
Either you are simply beautiful
Or I am simply dumb

Dumb, dumb, dumb

It doesn't take Robert The Bruce

To see the web you've spun
Either you are simply beautiful
Or I am simply dumb

Dumb, dumb, dumb

It doesn't take a Labrador
To show a blind man sun
Either you are simply beautiful
Or I am simply dumb

Dumb, dumb, dumb

The sun, the sky, the moon, the stars
Jupiter, Neptune and Mars
All these things I clearly see
It don't take a telescope for you to love me

Dumb, dumb, dumb

Overall Meaning

The Beautiful South's song "Dumb" is a melancholic meditation on the nature of love and beauty. The opening lines suggest that there is a simple formula to relationships: either one person is beautiful, or the other is dumb. This binary, however, is complicated by the subsequent verses, which introduce additional metaphors. A reference to Robert the Bruce alludes to his encounter with a spider (according to legend, he watched a spider weave its web and got the inspiration to keep fighting despite repeated losses). This spider-web image, then, implies that the singer is caught in an intricate trap set by their lover. Later, a Labrador leading a blind man to the sun implies that love can be a guiding force, but one must be willing to let go of their preconceptions and trust in their partner. Ultimately, the singer admits that their love for their partner is so all-consuming that it does not require any external validation – no telescopes or calculations are necessary.

The song's lyrics use simple language and metaphors to convey a complex message, one that lingers in the listener's mind long after the final chorus has faded out. By juxtaposing the beauty of the natural world with the complications of human relationships, The Beautiful South capture the profound joy and sadness that often come with falling in love.

Line by Line Meaning

It doesn't take a mathematician
It's not difficult to understand

To add a simple sum
To see what's obvious

Either you are simply beautiful
You might be perfect

Or I am simply dumb
And I just can't see it

It doesn't take Robert The Bruce
It's not that complicated

To see the web you've spun
To realize what you're doing

Either you are simply beautiful
You could be amazing

Or I am simply dumb
But I might be missing it

It doesn't take a Labrador
It's not that tough

To show a blind man sun
To illuminate something that's hidden

Either you are simply beautiful
You could be stunning