"What Makes You Beautiful" is a song by the English-Irish boy band: One Direction. It was as their debut single and top single from their debut studio album, ‘Up All Night (2011).’ The song was written by Carl Falk and Savan Kotecha, and produced by Rami Yacoub; it was released by Syco Records on the 11th September 2011. The opening guitar riff was noted to be similar to that of Grease single "Summer Nights". "What Makes You Beautiful" has a chorus that is guitar-based; It also entails cowbell instrumentation, and the middle eight also consists of an "oh na na na" hook.
Kotecha actually composed the song for his wife, who was having a bad morning in a hotel room in London and she was like she felt so ugly. Kotecha was trying to convince his wife that she was beautiful until he made a statement that ‘You don’t know how beautiful you look.’ He wrote down the statement and later wrote a song out of it.
The British-Irish singers, who happened to get their start on the United Kingdom version of ‘The X Factor,’ where they ended, third, sing about a girl that lacks confidence and does not realize that she is attractive and beautiful. "What Makes You Beautiful" has electro pop influences, and it’s a power pop song that ran for three minutes and 18 seconds. The song is fixed in common time, written in the key of E major with a tempo of 125 beats per minute. It follows the E–A–B chord progression; vocal elements is within the note of B3 to G#5
This song is disguised as a lovely little confidence booster for girls. So let us start with the lyrics.
You're insecure, don't know what for
Okay, good enough, you don’t really know her that much I assume as she hasn’t told you why she’s insecure, but you can surely tell she feels this way, all the same and you still don’t know why because she is great! Alright, off to a good enough beginning I think. Wonder how long it will last…
You're turning heads when you walk through the do-o-or
And so the downhill spiral starts in only the second line. Thus, you don’t really know her that much but you can still tell she’s insecure? But you do not know why, because people think she is hot when they see her. Well, self-image can be a very huge part of insecurity for most girls, but the fact that you don’t know why she’s insecure simply means you totally disregarded what she could have been insecure over, I can’t say, about any other thing. Such as, physical skills, academic achievement, parental favoritism, etc. (all things most girls personally were insecure about)
So there is that, ‘the only thing you could also be possibly insecure about is your looks’. And there is the fact that; validation from you or the people checking out on her is supposed to help her with her image of herself. If she’s attractive enough that she receives obvious and open stares, she may see that. It’s a lot more deep seated than that if it’s about looks. Such as some people with Anorexia look at themselves in the mirror and see that they’re overweight when in reality they’re 90 just pounds.
Don't need make-up - to cover up
Being the way that you are is eno-o-ough
Alright, fair enough, but it’s doubtful that you’ve even seen this very-insecure-girl whom you do not know very well without being on makeup. This is kind of ironic with the way most guys say that they don’t like makeup, and say they like the girls who look ‘natural’ totally oblivious to the fact that those are the girls that spent much time on their ‘natural’ makeup to make it look like that is how they look naturally.
Everyone else in the room can see it
Everyone else but you
Now, here it is again with an ‘everyone else can see you’re hot, why are you not validated based on the way they observe you? It’s not like this might possibly be deep seated problem that you have.’
Baby you light up my world like nobody else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed
The first line seems cheesy, fine, but totally harmless, and actually how someone would think this entire song was going to look like originally.
The second line: though, also harmless but, seriously? The way she flips her hair ‘overwhelmed’ get’s him overwhelmed? Like, he’s not going to make it far, is he? I wonder if he has chest spasms when she blinks at him.
But when you smile at the ground, it ain't hard to tell
You don't know
Oh oh
You don't know you're beautiful!
Okay, so she has problems seeing your eyes? Or anyone’s eyes it might sound like! That’s not so good man. Not only does she not know that she’s beautiful, but people who usually don’t look up much generally have terrible self-esteem issues.
If only you saw what I could see
You’d understand why I want you so desperately
Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe
You don't know
Oh oh
You don't know you're beautiful!
Oh oh
That's what makes you beautiful!
Okay, probably now you can see why this looks problematic. ‘If only you saw what I could see’ alright, but then ‘you'd understand why I want you so desperately’ and whatever gets you excited is supposed to brighten her self-esteem problems? Oh wait! You don’t even want her self-esteem problems gone! Because that’s the reason she gets you hot in the first place!
So girl come on!!
You got it wrong!
To prove I'm right I put it in a so-o-ong
I don't know why, you're being shy
And turn away when I look in to your ah-ah eyes
Alright, so you want to prove to her that she’s beautiful then you wrote this song, even though you don’t want her to know still that she’s beautiful, because that’s what made her attractive in the first place? Then what do you want?
Well, let’s conclude this way that it is the responsibility of every man to give their woman/lady hope, bring life to what seems dead, and you know, encourage them every time. That’s the way you can get the best out of your girl!
