Music has charms to soothe a savage breast. – William Congreve, The Mourning Bride (I,i)
A month ago I published a list of all the questions I’ve previously answered, and this month I’m doing something similar again with music. Every time I publish one of my “hooker songs” columns, readers make suggestions for the next one; that’s great, and I’ve used many of those suggestions in later columns. But as in the case of the questions, I’ve been doing it for so long now that newer readers are starting to suggest ones I’ve already done. So today, I present a hyperlinked catalog of all the songs I’ve presented so far; I’ll duplicate it later on a static page, and then every time I do a new song column I can link it for the benefit of those who are just coming in. I’m not sure how many more of them I’ll be able to do, but I suspect it will be at least a few. Just for the sake of completeness, I’ve included a second section with all the songs for which I’ve featured videos, even if they aren’t whore-related; and to make it more visually appealing, I’ve also embedded a few videos of songs that I featured before I started embedding videos.
Call Me (Blondie)
Candy’s Room (Bruce Springsteen)
Cross-Eyed Mary (Jethro Tull)
Down the Road Tonight (Bruce Hornsby and the Range)
Dulcinea (Leigh/Darion; sung by Simon Gilbert dubbing Peter O’Toole)
867-5309 (Tommy Tutone)
Everything’s Alright (Webber/Rice; performed by Yvonne Elliman, Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson)
Family Man (Oldfield/Cross; performed by Hall and Oates)
Fancy (Bobbie Gentry)
Farewell To Storyville (Clarence Williams; performed by Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong)
Fire Down Below (Bob Seger)
Hey, Big Spender (Dorothy Fields; performed by Sweet Charity cast)
Hot Child in the City (Nick Gilder)
The House of the Rising Sun (Traditional; performed by Dolly Parton)
I’m Tired (Mel Brooks; performed by Madeline Kahn)
It’s All the Same (Leigh/Darion; performed by Sophia Loren)
Jacky (Jacques Brel; translated and performed by Mort Shuman)
Killer Queen (Queen)
La Grange (ZZ Top)
Lady Marmalade (Crewe/Nolan; performed by LaBelle)
Love for Sale (Cole Porter; performed by Ella Fitzgerald)
The Magdalene Laundries (Joni Mitchell)
Maggie May (Traditional; performed by The Beatles)
Mexican Blackbird (ZZ Top)
Midtown Asian Sex Spa (B.B. Wye)
Minnie the Moocher (Cab Calloway)
New Orleans Ladies (LeRoux)
Next (Jacques Brel; translated by Blau/Shuman; performed by Walter Willison)
Private Dancer (Mark Knopfler; performed by Tina Turner)
Raised on Robbery (Joni Mitchell)
Roxanne (The Police)
Santa Baby (Javits/Springer; performed by Eartha Kitt)
The Son of Hickory Holler’s Tramp (Dallas Frazier; performed by O.C. Smith)
Strange Thing Mystifying (Webber/Rice; performed by Ted Neeley and Carl Anderson)
Sweet Cream Ladies (The Box Tops)
Sweet Georgia Brown (Bernie/Pinkard/Casey; performed by Ella Fitzgerald)
The Taxicab (Jacques Brel; translated and performed by Mort Shuman)
Texas Has a Whorehouse in It (Carol Hall; performed by Dom Deluise)
Trick of the Light (The Who)
A Woman’s Story (Tempo/Stevens/Spector; performed by Cher)
X Offender (Blondie)
Other Songs
All For the Best (Stephen Schwartz; performed by Victor Garber/David Haskell)
Cult of Personality (Living Color)
Disney Princess Leia
Dumb Ways to Die
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury (Rachel Bloom)
The Grinch Song (Hague/Geisel; sung by Thurl Ravenscroft)
Holly Jolly Christmas (Johnny Marks; sung by Burl Ives)
The Lees of Old Virginia (Sherman Edwards; performed by Ronald Holgate)
Me Ole Bamboo (Sherman/Sherman; performed by Dick Van Dyke)
Munchkinland (Arlen/Yarburg; performed by Judy Garland and cast)
Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom (Parry Grip)
Prince Ali (Menken/Ashman; sung by Robin Williams)
Pure Imagination (Bricusse/Newley; performed by Gene Wilder)
Put One Foot in Front of the Other (Laws/Bass; sung by Mickey Rooney)
Take Off With Us (Lebowsky/Tobias; performed by All That Jazz cast)
This is Halloween (Danny Elfman; sung by Nightmare Before Christmas cast)
We Don’t Need a Man (Rachel Bloom)
What a Wonderful World (Thiele/Weiss; performed by CDZA)
The Yellow Rose of Texas (Traditional; performed by Mitch Miller)
Black Sabbath – Dirty Women
“Bad Girls”, Donna Summer.
Wild Thing by Tone Löc
“I need fifty dollars
If you want to make me holla’
I get PAID to do the wild thing.”
I guarantee that you will NEVER see that song in one of my columns, unless I do a list of the songs I despise the most. My hatred for it is so deep that while it was popular I would (sometimes without asking) change the channel on other people’s radios if it came on, and to this day I will express my disgust to anyone who uses the expression in no uncertain terms. It is the single ugliest, most vulgar reduction of both my profession and sex in general to repulsive, mechanical rooting it has ever been my misfortune to hear, and I am glad Tone Loc was a one-hit wonder because otherwise I’m sure he would have eventually come up with something even more loathsome. 🙁
So… you’re saying you don’t like it?
Just kidding.
Yeah but what did you think of the melody? 😛
It doesn’t have one, not really; just a beat and annoying electronic sounds.
I wonder how Marie-Claire got to where she is from “the back streets of Naples” in Peter Starstedt’s Where do you go to my lovely? And do the references to speaking “Russian and Greek” have another meaning? (That verse isn’t in all recordings.)
In regards to Tommy Tutone: it’s funny how you hear a song and not figure what it’s about. Of course, adults listening to it know what “for the price of a dime I can always turn to youuuuuu” means. But I was just a kid at the time.
😀
Check out the song “Jezebel”. LOVE it. forgot the artist. Its attached. Hope it works. One of my faves. annie
22, ACACIA AVENUE – IRON MAIDEN ?
That’s part of the “Charlotte the Harlot” series, which (as I explained in November) I’m not exactly thrilled with.
Yeah, bringing them all together was a good idea. Now you won’t have somebody asking if you’ve ever done “Lady Marmalade.” ^_~
I for one would love to see a “Songs I Loathe” column from you, detailing exactly why each song drives you batty.
Ha! I just thought of that myself while I was at the barn feeding my animals. The only problem with that idea is, it would undoubtedly fix some of them in my mind for a while…and I’m not sure I want to suffer that much for my art. 😉
Not a good idea – I’m sure you’d have a LOT of my favorite tunes on your loathsome list … probably with paragraphs of text detailing exactly why each song sucks. You’d end up putting something by Hall & Oats on it … and it would ruin my day!!
How about “Wild Thing” by the Troggs?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14jlfuwHqr4
I loved the way they used it in the first “Major League.”
“Wild Thing” by Tone Löc is one thing. “Wild Thing” by the Troggs is quite another. Love the Troggs. Hard to believe the same band also did “Love is All Around.”
I’ve spent much of the last two years trying to find all the music videos from the 1960s that I can on Youtube. It’s surprising how many there are. There’s a really good one for Love Is All Around, featuring the band on a train with a girl with henna tattoos.
The Troggs did a lot of unusual songs. If you want to hear something freaky, look up Cousin Jane.
I had never heard “Cousin Jane,” and had no idea the song existed. It’s beautiful, and yes, pretty strange.
I like the Troggs’ “Wild Thing”, but do y’all honestly feel it’s about a hooker? It seems a big stretch.
I don’t think it’s about a hooker. I just think it’s a lot better song than the similarly-named song by Tone Löc.
For the record, I don’t hate Tone Löc’s song; but the one by the Troggs is a LOT better.
Naw, not about a hooker. But I think that there are undertones of someone who doesn’t exactly conform to society’s expectations. 😉
One of my favorite scenes in “Major League” is when Charlie Sheen as Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn is on his way to the mound and “Wild Thing” is rocking the stadium. Margaret Whitton looks in to the camera, and, deadpan says, “I hate this effing song.”
The funny thing is, she hates the song because she’s a complete bitch. Not saying that anybody who hates “Wild Thing” is a bitch, but that’s why she hates it.
Never, ever thought it was about a hooker. I never thought the Troggs meant “hooker” whatsoever.
OT slightly, but thinking the Troggs’ “Wild Thing” is about a hooker is like thinking the Kinks’ “Art Lover” is about Pinkie at The Huntington. (I don’t mean the porn star, she’s Pinky, and I doubt she’s ever been at The Huntington).
Tone Luc on the other hand probably confuses both.
Baroque Bordello, by The Stranglers.
Anyone woman that remembers/knows the Box Tops’ “Sweet Cream Ladies”, and likes it, gets my vote for “Intellectual Hottie of the Year”. The only 45 I’ve watched a parent break (not mine, but a friend’s; his father entered my friend’s room, broke the 45 over his knee and walked out without a word, OK, maybe “not in my house”).
I must confess, I did not know that one until Ornithorhynchus suggested it in a comment to an earlier song column; however, I loved it from the first time I heard it. 🙂