Oh, there ain’t no rest for the wicked,
Money don’t grow on trees,
I got bills to pay,
I got mouths to feed,
There ain’t nothing in this world for free. – Cage the Elephant
It’s time for more songs about working girls, and as usual I’ve tried to get as much variety as possible in both the type of lady (from streetwalker to courtesan) and the musical genre (from jazz to opera). We’ll start with one suggested by Chester Brown, about a sailor visiting a brothel. He seems to be one of the type I’ve mentioned before, who are overcome with shame after orgasm: He jumps up and rushes out, then feels his passion was “wasted” on “love [that] was but a smile”. Nonetheless, it’s a lovely song.
Pleasures of the Harbor (Phil Ochs)
And the ship sets the sail
They’ve lived the tale
To carry to the shore
Straining at the oars
Or staring from the rail
And the sea bids farewell
She waves in swells
And sends them on their way
Time has been her pay
And time will have to tell
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor
And the anchor hits the sand
The hungry hands
Have tied them to the port
The hour will be short
For leisure on the land
And the girls scent the air
They seem so fair
With paint on their face
Soft is their embrace
To lead them up the stairs
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor
In the room dark and dim
Touch of skin
He asks her of her name
She answers with no shame
And not a sense of sin
Until the fingers draw the blinds
Sip of wine
The cigarette of doubt
The candle is blown out
The darkness is so kind
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor
And the shadows frame the light
Same old sight
Thrill has blown away
Now all alone they lay
Two strangers in the night
Till his heart skips a beat
He’s on his feet
To shipmates he must join
She’s counting up the coins
He’s swallowed by the street
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor
In the bar hangs a cloud
The whiskey’s loud
There’s laughter in their eyes
The lonely in disguise
Are clinging to the crowd
And the bottle fills the glass
The haze is fast
He’s trembling for the taste
Of passion gone to waste
In memories of the past
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor
In the alley, red with rain
Cry of pain
For love was but a smile
Teasing all the while
Now dancing down the drain
‘Till the boys reach the dock
They gently mock
Lift him on their backs
Lay him on his rack
And leave beneath the light
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor
And the ship sets the sail
They’ve lived the tale
To carry from the shore
Straining at the oars
Or staring from the rail
And the sea bids farewell
She waves in swells
And sends them on their way
Time has been her pay
And time will have to tell
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor
Let’s speed things up a bit now, with two from Street Walker Blues. This first was very popular with the big bands, though originally written in 1924; it describes a young man who is disturbed by his encounter with an old girlfriend who is now a sex worker. It’s thus thematically similar to the J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold”, written over 55 years later.
Nobody’s Sweetheart (Kahn/Erdman; music by Meyers/Schoebel)
You’re nobody’s sweetheart now,
There’s no place for you somehow,
Fancy hose, silken gowns,
You’d be out of place in your own hometown!
When you walk down the avenue,
Some just can’t believe that it’s you.
Painted lips, painted eyes,
Wearing a bird of paradise,
It all seems wrong somehow,
That you’re nobody’s sweetheart now!
Though we can’t be sure exactly what sort of sex worker “nobody’s sweetheart” was, there’s absolutely no such ambiguity in our next choice:
Down in the Alley (Memphis Minnie)
I met a man, asked me did I want to pally
Yes, baby, let’s go down in the alley
Take me down in the alley
Take me down in the alley
Take me down in the alley
I can get any business fixed all right
I met another man, asked me for a dollar
Might have heard that mother fuyer holler
Let’s go down in the alley
Let’s go down in the alley
Let’s go down in the alley
You can get your business fixed all right
(spoken) Let’s go
When he got me in the alley, he called me a name
What I put on him was a crying shame
Down in this alley
Down in this alley
Down in this alley
Where I got my business fixed all right
You got me in the alley, but don’t get rough
I ain’t gonna put up with that doggone stuff
Way down in the alley
Way down in the alley
Way down in the alley
Lord, my business fixed all right
(spoken) Oh, it’s so dark
Can’t see no light
Got to feel my way out this alley
I’m sure gonna stop walking at night
You took me in the alley, you knocked me down
Now I’m gonna call every copper in this town
You got me down in the alley
You got me down in the alley
You got me down in the alley
Now you got your business fixed all right
(spoken): Boys, I’m sure gonna stop walking,
walking late at night.
Memphis Minnie knew whereof she spoke, because like Edith Piaf she started as a street singer who also turned tricks. Even once she became part of the Memphis blues scene, she still made more from hooking than from music until she married in 1929. This sort of casual prostitution by women who don’t primarily identify as whores was probably the most common type throughout human history (and may still be, considering that ten times as many women have taken money for sex than have worked as full-time hookers); it’s always been especially common in the entertainment industry. A century before Minnie’s time French girls of this type were called grisettes, and this song from The Merry Widow portrays a group who are dancers, B-girls and whores:
The Grisettes Song (Franz Lehár; French lyrics by Viktor Léon and Leo Stein)
On the boulevard we’re strolling,
Trippel-trippel trippel trapp!
When the gendarme’s out patrolling,
Drop a copper in his cap.
Drop a copper in his cap,
And the gendarme takes a nap!
It’s so cheap to keep him sleeping,
Drop a copper in his cap!
Every night we come to Maxim’s,
Where the night-owls congregate!
Every true insomniac
Is glad that Maxim’s stays up late.
We’re Maxim’s favorite dancers,
We’re cabaret entrancers,
Lolo, Dodo, Joujou, Froufrou, Cloco, Margot. Et Moi!
Ritantouri, tantirette
Eh voilà les belles grisettes!
Les grisettes de Paris,
Ritantouri tantiri!
Will you buy a poor grisette
A flower or a glass of wine?
Life is not an operetta,
Here you get a check to sign.
Paris isn’t Liechtenstein,
Here you get a check to sign!
We rely on you to buy
A flower or a glass of wine!
We grisettes, we stay so merry,
For you men, you like us so!
Every night the necessary
Glass of sherry, then the show!
We’re Maxim’s favorite dancers,
We’re cabaret entrancers,
Lolo, Dodo, Joujou, Froufrou, Cloco, Margot. Et Moi!
Ritantouri, tantirette
Eh voilà les belles gristtes!
Les grisettes de Paris,
Ritantouri tantiri!
Translating songs is not easy, and these lyrics are different from those in other English-language versions of the operetta; some of the ones I found online were considerably more coy than these. That video and the one below were suggested by Dean Clark, with the comment “For your hooker song files. Opera is full of them.” The most famous of these is probably La Traviata, from which today’s last selection is drawn; it was adapted from the theatrical version of La Dame aux Camélias (known as Camille in English), Alexandre Dumas, fils’ novel based loosely on the real life of Marie Duplessis, whom we shall meet this coming Thursday.
Sempre Libera (“Always Free”) (Giuseppe Verdi; lyrics by Francesco Piave)
Violetta: Free and aimless I frolic
From joy to joy,
Flowing along the surface
Of life’s path as I please.
As the day is born,
Or as the day dies,
Happily I turn to the new delights
That make my spirit soar.
Alfredo: Love is a heartbeat throughout the universe,
Mysterious, altering, the torment and delight of my heart.
Violetta: Oh! Oh! Love! Madness! Euphoria!
Sempre Libera…. one of the most misinterpreted arias in opera. A lot of Violettas take the words literally and sing it like a happy song. The smart ones understand that it’s really a death wish: Violetta, who has tuberculosis, is stating her intention to literally party herself to death.
I was wondering if you would ever address La traviata. It is interesting because Violetta, the courtesan, is in fact the most honorable character, while Germont, her lover’s bourgeois and uptight father, is one of opera’s most manipulative and nasty villains. This was groundbreaking in 19th century opera, to have a sympathetic whore character.
I’ve seen it dozens of times and it still moves me like few works of art can.
This is all quite nice Jazzy stuff – but for your rock list – did you ever get “Baby Gets Around a Bit” by Poison? I know – they are a mindless band (LOL – which I why I prolly like them!) … but this is a funny song …
Just an excerpt …
Alexandre Dumas had a very negative view of courtesans.Duplessis was according to him the last courtesan who had a heart but the cost of one evening with him was enouph to ruin him.he wrote to her ”im not rich enouph to love you as i would wish,nor poor enouph to be loved by you as you would.”.he was convinced that every courtesan was a wicked woman trying to acheive social respectability by manipulating and marrying a rich idiot.(yeah,how many men think that of women today).worse than him was Emile Zola who painted Nana as a man eating monster.but theese are lauphing matters.i cant get mad at men who feel hurt by finding out that women want their cash or are scared of female sexuality.what i do get mad at is some of the new ”feminist”artists who sadly use their talent to promote their propaganda of sex workers.theres a poet Sabrina Mahfouz who campaigns against page 3 and used to be a strip club waiitress.she wrote a play about a stripper.she does heroine in order to survive.she has a loser boyfriend.something about throat slitting serial killers.every dancer is fucked up.every customer is a sleazebag.you can check some of her poems if you google ”sabrina mahfouz, the feminist in the strip club”.one sided at best,offensive at worst.
Thank you for recognizing Phil Ochs in your post, Maggie. Almost no one, anymore, knows who he is. I cried when I heard he killed himself. I have always loved Pleasures of the Harbor, always loved the way he sang it. He was a great talent who was overshadowed by his contemporaries just when, I believe, he was about to come into his own. The rest of the songs you list are wonderful and do prove your point. By that one is special to me. Thanks again.
Doug Stewart
Not EXPLICITLY about prostitution, but I think the implication is pretty clear.
Twiddles
When the boats all get to sailing and the men are off and gone
What about the women who are up and left alone
Do you think they sit and twiddle thumbs until their men come home
Ha! There’s other things to twiddle when a girl’s left on her own.
And it’s twiddly-i dee-i dee-i, twiddly-i dee-ay
Well it’s oftentimes a man will leave you broken with dismay
And it’s twiddly-i dee-i dee-i, twiddly-i dee-ay
But there’s other things to twiddle when your man has sailed away.
Well, I remember Nancy, she was young and she was gay
She won the heart of Captain Dan until he sailed away
He left her high and dry with just a kiss upon the chin
But as his ship went sailing out, another ship sailed in.
And it’s twiddly-i dee-i dee-i, twiddly-i dee-ay
And then there was Lucinda Brown, as fair as any maid
Her truelove went a voyaging, a sailorman by trade
“Oh, keep the fire burning, love,” those are the words he spoke
So she found herself another man to keep that fire stoked.
And it’s twiddly-i dee-i dee-i, twiddly-i dee-ay
Lucy Jeffers man came back and knocked upon the door
She was as glad to see him as she’d ever been before
He left her sleeping in the bed, but Lucy didn’t care
Cuz the poor guy in the closet sure could use a little air.
And it’s twiddly-i dee-i dee-i, twiddly-i dee-ay
Oh you hear a lot of stories ’bout the sailors and their sport
About how every sailor has a girl in every port
But if you added two and two, you’d figure out right quick
It’s just because the girls all have a lad on every ship.
And it’s twiddly-i dee-i dee-i, twiddly-i dee-ay. . .
© Janie Meneely
At his best, Phil Ochs was a better song writer than Dylan, far more gut-wrenching. “Universal Soldier” is still the 2nd best antiwar song in history, after Pete Seger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” although “Eve of Destruction” is a close.3rd. And yes, it is a matter of taste.
I thought Buffy Ste Marie wrote Universal Soldier.
I think Some Mother’s Son by the Kinks is the greatest anti-war song.
You are correct. and if my record albums weren’t in storage I would figure out which Ochs song I was conflating it with.
but I am sorry, as big a Kinks fan as I am, “Some Mother’s Son” is only in the top ten, not number one; but thank you for reminding me of it. I think “Apeman” is a better anti-everything song, including war (I don’t feel safe in this world no more, I don’t wanna die in a nuclear war…”
You forgot Lady Marmalade ….. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir”
Here’s a list of every song I’ve ever done, including that one.
It’s one of the few French phrases I can at all pronounce.
I forgot one more truly great anti-war song, which–when I am really pissed off pushes from its Number 4 position to Number 1, with a bullet (pun intended)–and that of course is Bruce Cockburns classic “If I Had a rocket Launcher.” The irony and vitriol of this song cuts through to the heart of every person who has started crying viewing piles of corpses in a war zone, even if it is only on TV.
I like Phil Ochs and thanks for turning me on to another one of his works. The video you have posted however represents a performance where Ochs left out the fourth verse–“…Till his heart skips a beat, ….she’s counting up the coins…”–crucial I would say to the meaning of the song and especially crucial to your inclusion in this collection. A search of youtube shows only one other version, also love, done much slower (if that’s possible) and dedicated to “Lenny Bruce,” who had just died. (http://youtu.be/YPJwSjByXGo). Thanks for the posting, Maggie.
If you ever get the urge to investigate other courtesan operas, be sure to check out Manon Lescaut. It ends with her being deported to Louisiana. 😀
Also Madama Butterfly (if geishas count), Thaïs, and Lulu.
Big opera queen here, natch. Of the female hetero variety. LOL.
Another good “hooker” opera is La Rondine by Puccini.
True, forgot about that one. Shame it’s performed so rarely, because the music is gorgeous.
Another fine collection, Maggie! The “Grisettes” song finishes with a piece of music everybody has heard, though many don’t know it’s more formal name. The dance I have performed in person all of once. Tracy and I were at Six Flags Over Texas and ducked into a show to get out of the heat. We were there about a minute when THAT DANCE started up.
I agree with those who say that there’s no “sort of” being able to do that dance. Either you can-can or you can’t-can’t.
The dance I have SEEN performed in person all of once.
I have not performed it myself. Sorry about that. Some days it seems I can’t tucking fype.