Fancy

I remember it all very well lookin' back it was the summer I turned eighteen

We lived in a oneroom rundown shack on the outskirts of New Orleans

We didn't have money for food or rent to say the least we were hard pressed

Then mama spent every last penny we had to buy me a satin dancin' dress

Mama washed and combed and curled my hair and she painted my eyes and lips

Then I stepped into my satin dancin' dress

That had a split on the side clean up to my hips

It was red velvet trim and it fit me good and starin' back from the lookin' glass

There stood a woman where a half grown kid had stood

Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down

Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down

Mama dabbed a little bit of perfume on my neck and she kissed my cheek

Then I saw the tears wellin' up in her troubled eyes when she started to speak

She looked at a pitful shack and then she looked at me and took a ragged breath

Your pa's run off and I'm real sick and the baby's gonna starve to death

She handed me a heart shaped locket that said to thine owenself be true

And I shivered as I watched a rouch crawl across the toe of my high heeled shoe

It sounded like somebody else that was talkin' askin' mama what do I do

Just be nice to the gentlemen Fancy and they'll be nice to you

Here's your one chance...

Lord forgive me for what I do but if you want out well it's up to you

Now don't let me down you better start movin' uptown

Well that was the last time I saw my ma the night I left that rickety shack

The welfare people came and took the baby mama died and I ain't been back

But the wheels of fate had started to turn and for me there was no way out

And it wasn't very long till I knew exactly what my mama'd been talkin' about

I knew what I had to do but I made myself this solemn vow

That I was gonna be a lady someday though I didn't know when or how

I couldn't see spendin' the rest of my life with my head hung down in shame

I might have been born just plain white trash but Fancy was my name

Here's your one chance...

It wasn't long after a benevolent man took me off the street

And one week later I was pourin' his tea in a five room motel suite

I charmed a king a congressman and an occasional aristocrat

Then I got me a Georgia mansion in an elegant New York townhouse flat

And I ain't done bad