Ok, so this is perhaps more "For Your Listening Pleasure" than "For Your Viewing Pleasure", but still. This track, "Being Pretty Ain't Pretty", is from female country group Pistol Annies' 2013 album, Annie Up. It's never been released as a single, hence there's no official music video floating around. No matter, as the video below showcases the most important thing about the song for me, the powerfully simple lyrics which spell out the endless, expensive and tiresome work of performing femininity. To quote the chorus: "Being pretty ain't pretty, it takes all day long / You spend all your money just to wipe it all off / You spray on your perfume, you spray on your tan / Get up in the morning, do it over again / Being pretty ain't pretty at all". I particularly appreciate how the video projects the lyrics over a still of the Annie Up front cover, which shows the three Annies working their best sultry sexy womanhood - teased-out hair and smokey come-to-bed eyes and all. The disjuncture between the "final product" of their presentation on the cover and the song lyrics (and almost mournful minor key) really pushes home the point, I think. Yes, the Annies can and do look like that - but it ain't easy work, and it certainly comes at a (psychological and literal) cost. It feels like a good counter-point to the last FYVP, which centred on the empowering nature of make-up as a means to control self-representation and identity in the world. Again, I confess my love of make-up and the spectacle of feminine image management, but when such self-presentation is required (socially or otherwise) it is a destructive drain on resources of all kinds.