Yeah, it’s a chair. You just keep thinking that.
Glad Rag Doll - from the 20s. On the Diana Krall cd. Unless all flappers were considered to be prostitutes.
The quote is a reference to my suggestion that Goodbye Yellow Brick Road qualifies.
Here’s the lyrics.
http://www.songmeanings.net/m/songs/view/1959/
Country boy swept up in the high life, realises he’s just being used as a decoration to be shared around in exchange for being given the tidbits of wealth, decides to reclaim his dignity and go home. Pretty obvious, I would have thought. YMMV.
The Irish Folk song Dicey Reilly, complete here with Ronnie Drew’s introduction that makes it very clear what the profession of the lady in question was.
Also, The Monto, about Dublin’s red light district, also with an introduction.
I’m pretty sure when this song talks about her walking the streets, it is literal, in that she enjoys the late night city life far more than her long-suffering husband.
Again, I think that’s about a woman who enjoys nightlife (including the men she meets), although not the mornings after, rather than a prostitute. Unless you think a woman who sleeps with a man who buys her drinks is a whore…
In an old article about Harlan Howard (who cowrote the song) it mentioned it was about prostitution.
Do you have a link to the article? I’ve done a quick search and I can’t find anything. It’s not obvious from the lyrics, even granted that it wouldn’t be explicit given the time it was written.
“Alice” by Mott the Hoople: “And when a stranger said she sucked, she just smiled, believed in luck, as she climbed into his truck to make a buck.”
“Jennifer Jones” by Wild Man Fischer: “She used to be a small-time hooker, she only charged, like, $25 a throw…”
“A Country Gentleman’s Wife”, by Alan Hull, is sort of about a “kept man”: it ends up with “For one square meal of every day, an unlimited supply of booze, and any old country gentleman’s wife can do anything they choose.”
Actually I realized it wasn’t from an article; it was from a book called “Three Chords and the Truth” written in 1997 that had a chapter about Howard. Unfortunately, Google Books has only a snippet preview.
Isn’t the entire opera “Carmen” about a whore? OK, OK, a woman of easy virtue?
Glitter and Be Gay from Candide, although Cunegonde was definitely an expensive mistress rather than a ha’penny streetwalker.
Oh yeah, and the Beggar Woman’s Waltz from Sweeney Todd.
The Tango Ballad from Threepenny opera.