Fancy

I remember it all very well looking back

Was the summer I turned eighteen

We lived in a one room, worn-out shack on the outskirts of New Orleans

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

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

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

Stepped into a satin dancin' dress that had a slit in the side clean up to my hips

It was red velvet trimming and it fit me good

Staring back from the looking glass, there stood a woman where a half-grown boy 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

I could see the tears welling up in her troubled eyes as she started to speak

She looked at our pitiful shack, and then she looked at me and took a ragged breath

She said 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 own self be true"

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

It sounded like somebody else that was talking, asking, "Mama what do I do?"

She said, "Just be nice to the gentleman, Fancy, they'll be nice to you"

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

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

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

Don't let me down now, your mama's gonna move you uptown

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

It wasn't very long till I knew exactly what my mama'd been talking about

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

Said I was gonna be a lady someday, though it didn't matter when or how

I couldn't see spending the rest of my life with my head held down in shame

You know, I might've been born just plain white trash but Fancy was my name

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

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

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

One week later I was pouring his tea in a five-room hotel suite

I charmed a king, a congressman, and the occasional aristocrat

I got me a Georgia mansion and an elegant New York townhouse flat and I ain't done bad

Now in this life there's a lot of self-righteous hypocrites that call me bad

And criticize mama for turning me out, no matter how little we had

And though I ain't had to worry 'bout nothin' for now on fifteen years

I can still hear the desperation in my poor mama's voice ringing in my ears

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

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

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

Don't let me down now, your mama's gonna move you Uptown