Inner Smile

"Inner Smile" is a song by Scottish pop group Texas, originally released on their 2000 album The Greatest Hits and co-written by Gregg Alexander and Rick Nowels. It was released as the second single from The Greatest Hits album in the United Kingdom and peaked at #6 on the UK Singles Chart. It was also featured in the final sequence of the feature film Bend It Like Beckham.

The song was based on Gregg Alexander's unreleased demo "Inner Child" which was written and sung between 1995-1998.

Track listing

CD1 (MERCD 531)

CD2 (MERDD 531)

Music video

The video, directed by Vaughan Arnell, is a homage to Elvis Presley (and specifically his '68 Comeback Special shows) with lead singer Sharleen Spiteri dressed as Elvis in his famous black leather suit and using prosthetics to resemble Elvis. It begins with Sharleen/Elvis turning on a TV (probably to see "the show", i.e. the video clip), then she/he begins to sing. It had some black and white stills showing her in distinct situations (in one of them, Sharleen/Elvis proudly holds a belt with the word "SHAR" instead of "ELVIS", formed with diamonds). In some scenes, she switches from her Elvis costume to another black leather outfit (without prosthetics). The video clip was shot in London in November 2000 with a live audience and with the band members playing different roles as musicians and/or audience members (with Spiteri portraying various groupies). In one of the scenes, Sharleen (as Elvis) sings along with Sharleen. It is often assumed this scene represents Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

Texas

Texas /ˈtɛksəs/ (Spanish: Texas or Tejas [ˈtexas]) is a state in the United States of America. It is the second most populous and second largest state by area in the US. Geographically located in the south central part of the country, Texas shares an international border with Mexico to the south and borders the states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km²) and a growing population of over 27.5 million residents (July 2015).

Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States, while San Antonio is the second largest in the state and seventh largest in the United States. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are the fourth and fifth largest United States metropolitan statistical areas, respectively. Other major cities include Austin (the state capital) and El Paso. Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State to signify Texas as a former independent republic, and as a reminder of the state's struggle for independence from Mexico. The "Lone Star" can be found on the Texan state flag and on the Texan state seal. The origin of the state name, Texas, is from the word, "Tejas", which means 'friends' in the Caddo language.

Smile

A smile is a facial expression formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a "Duchenne smile". Smiles performed without the eye contraction can be perceived as "fake".

Among humans, smiling is an expression denoting pleasure, sociability, happiness, or amusement. It is distinct from a similar but usually involuntary expression of anxiety known as a grimace. Although cross-cultural studies have shown that smiling is a means of communication throughout the world, there are large differences between different cultures, with some using smiles to convey confusion or embarrassment.

Historical background

Primatologist Signe Preuschoft traces the smile back over 30 million years of evolution to a "fear grin" stemming from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless. The smile may have evolved differently among species and especially among humans. Apart from Biology as an academic discipline that interprets the smile, those who study kinesics and psychology such as Freitas-Magalhaes view the smile as an affect display that can communicate feelings such as love, happiness, pride, contempt, and embarrassment.