50ft Queenie

Album: Rid Of Me (1993)
Charted: 27
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Songfacts®:

  • Move over, boys, there's a new rocker in town and she's a big star - literally. She's 50 ft tall and ready to stomp out her competition. "She's big 'cause she feasts on men and that's a good form of protein," Harvey told Melody Maker.
  • From her towering height, Queenie is unimpressed with macho posturing and let's her male counterparts know it by mocking their obsession with their, ahem, measurements. "I'm 20 inches long," she sings. But Harvey, who has always been reluctant to label herself a feminist, says she wasn't trying to write a female power anthem, but was inspired by the bravado of gangsta rap. "I really liked the bragging, the way the rappers say their names over and over," she said. "I wanted to write something about a really bolshy character."
  • In the music video, Harvey takes on the role of the sky-high heroine, decked out in sunglasses, gold wedges, and a leopard coat. Beavis and Butt-Head offered commentary on the clip in the 1993 episode "Tornado."

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