Songs about prostitution

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The Beatles - Norwegian Wood

I once had a girl
Or should I say, she once had me
She showed me her room
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?

She asked my to stay and told me sit anywhere
So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair

I sat on a rug, biding my time
Drinking her wine
We talked until two, and then she said:
"It's time for bed,"

She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh
I told her I didn't, and crawled off to sleep in the bath

And when I awoke, I was alone
This bird has flown
So I lit a fire
Isn't it good Norwegian wood?

Manic Street Preachers - Yes

For sale? dumb c*nt's same dumb questions
Oh virgins? listen, all virgins are liars honey
And I don't know what I'm scared of or what I even enjoy
Dulling, get money, but nothing turns out like you want it to

And in these plagued streets of pity you can buy anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a God on video
He's a boy, you want a girl so tear off his c*ck
Tie his hair in bunches, f*ck him, call him Rita if you want

I eat and I dress and I wash and I still can say thank you
Puking - shaking - sinking I still stand for old ladies
Can't shout, can't scream, hurt myself to get pain out

I 'T' them, 24:7, all year long
Purgatory's circle, drowning here, someone will always say yes
Funny place for the social, for the insects to start caring
Just an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff

In these plagued streets of pity you can by anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a God on video
He's a boy, you want a girl so tear off his c*ck
Tie his hair in bunches, f*ck him, call him Rita if you want, if you want

I eat and I dress and I wash and I can still say thank you
Puking - shaking - sinking I still stand for old ladies
Can't shout, can't scream, I hurt myself to get pain out

Power produces desire, the weak have none
There's no lust in this coma even for a fifty
Solitude, solitude, the 11th commandment

The only certain thing that is left about me
There is no part of my body that has not been used
Pity or pain, to show displeasure's shame
Everyone I've loved or hated always seems to leave

And in these plagued streets of pity you can buy anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a God on video
He's a boy, you want a girl so tear off his c*ck
Tie his hair in bunches, f*ck him, call him Rita if you want, if you want

Power produces desire, the weak have none
There's no lust in this coma even for a fifty
Solitude, solitude, the 11th commandment

Don't hurt, just obey, lie down, do as they say
May as well be heaven this hell, smells the same
These sunless afternoons I can't find myself

Well I'm lazy so I wont be posting the lyrics to these ones but these are a few on my collection which come to mind:

Animals - House of the Rising Sun
Arctic Monkeys - When the sun goes down
Bauhaus - Dark entries
Belle and Sebastian - Lazy Line Painter Jane
Blondie - Call Me
Elton John - All the Young Girls Love Alice
Elton John - Sweet Painted Lady
Jane's Addiction - Jane Says
Labelle - Lady Marmalade
Frank Zappa - Willie the Pimp
Marcy Playground - Sex and candy
Marlene Dietrich - Laziest Gal in Town
Nina Simone - See-line woman
Prince - Darling Nikki
The Cure - Siamese Twins
Tom Waits - Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
The Police - Roxanne
Ramones - 53rd and 3rd
Velvet Underground - Femme Fatale

Pretty sure Tom Waits has a few songs regarding prostitution/prostitutes but cant recall anything else at the moment. Not much of a hip hop connoisseur but I'm sure there's loads of deep lyrics about pimps and prostitution on the genre.

tell us how Norwegian Wood is about prostitution because I've read a lot of readings of the lyrics but never once was it suggested to be a prostitution tale...?

Well it's clearly about having an affair. Always thought it was more specifically about prostitution for the line "She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh" as if she was joking about the situation. But then it's too blurry so maybe it's not really about prostitution but about a simple one night stand. Day Tripper and Maggie Mae are definitely about prostitutes tho.

What I mean is, why else would you laugh about working in the morning unless it was some sort of tongue in cheek comment.

Mmmm thinking about it also the line: "She asked my to stay and told me sit anywhere so I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair". She wouldn't be needing nothing else on her cheap norwegian wood flat but a bed for customers.

Also did a quick google search for 'norwegian wood' and prostitution because I couldn't believe noone else thought of it as a song about a prostitute before and it seems I'm not quite alone there.

American Music Club: Chanel No.5

Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down

Look here comes a Ford Mondeo
Isn't he Mister Inconspicuous?
And he don't even have to say owt
She's in the stance ready to get picked up
Bet she's delighted when she sees him
Pulling in and giving her the eye
Because she must be fucking freezing
Scantily clad beneath the clear night sky
it doesn't stop in the winter, no

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VnwL4-Ghn0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p8wDhK5LyY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaWsIzWZFr0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsXJcIODLtQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVNj9Pl-i7I

In "Norwegian Wood", I just heard "She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh" as meaning that the woman was being a bit of a tease or at least a disappointment for the narrator: She invited him over, got drunk with him, and chatted all night while he "bided his time", expecting to sleep with her at the end of the night. Then at 2 am, she made an excuse and went off to sleep by herself, laughing because she sensed that he wanted more than he was going to get. She didn't even offer him a place to sleep so he made do with the bath. The song doesn't make sense to me if it's about a prostitute. Why would a prostitute even let a client sleep at her house, after chatting with him all night and offering him her wine? Why would he be surprised and/or angered that she left him alone in the morning?

I guess this interpretation, from an online site, supports Moka's reading. It still seems odd to me that a prostitute would try to trick someone into sleeping with her and owing her money:

In my reading of it, the song is about a musician who picks up a girl after a show that he believes to be a groupie, only to discover (too late) she is in fact a prostitute.

"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me."

ie, he 'had' her sexually, but she 'had' him; tricked him into owing her money.

"She said 'sit anywhere'/ but I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair"

ie, because a prostitute would only need a bed in her flat, not a chair.

"She told me she worked in morning and started to laugh/I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath."

ie, a prostitute would work in the early morning (12-6 am)

"Isn't it good/ Norwegian Wood" seems to play on the two senses of the phrase at two different points in the song - wood paneling and marijuana - and at the end, he lights up a joint to calm his nerves.

Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis by Tom Waits is a beautiful song

Dixie Chicken - Little Feat
Up On Cripple Creek - The Band

Suede - The Asphalt World

I know a girl she walks the asphalt world
She comes to me and I supply her with Ecstasy
Sometimes we ride in a taxi to the ends of the city
Like big stars in the back seat like skeletons ever so pretty
I know a girl she walks the asphalt world

She's got a friend, they share mascara I pretend
Sometimes they fly from the covers to the winter of the river
For these silent stars of the cinema
It's in the blood stream, it's in the liver
I know a girl, she walks the asphalt felt world

But where does she go?
And what does she do?
And how does she feel when she's next to you?
And who does she love in time-honored fur?
Is it me or is it her?

With ice in her blood
And a Dove in her head
Well how does she feel when she's in your bed?
When you're there in her arms
And there in her legs
Well I'll be in her head

'cause that's where I go
And that's what I do
And that's how it feels when the sex turns cruel
Yes both of us need her, this is the asphalt world

the entire career of too short and lock thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4ZCrMESar8

Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp

And

Backside of Dallas - Jeanie C. Riley (well worth finding)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfdzDhb8rRQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIImIZ6EhrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO7q5z5wbNc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuORgPpODZA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqweaZNZ3_E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a4xN1tiJhY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBwgyXxScoM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmfKkbJBiBk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuyRW31u4Zs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnMFOeEPUks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHhWk_P-aFw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfQKEzYCdX0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdPQp6Jcdk

^^ might be wrong about that one, actually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQdu4UOCUZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSHjTGgZ1mU

THE POGUES - THE OLD MAIN DRAG

When I first came to London I was only sixteen
With a fiver in my pocket and my ole dancing bag
I went down to the dilly to check out the scene
But I soon ended up upon the old main drag

There the he-males and the she-males paraded in style
And the old man with the money would flash you a smile
In the dark of an alley you'd work for a fiver
For a swift one off the wrist down on the old main drag

In the cold winter nights the old town it was chill
But there were boys in the cafes who'd give you cheap pills
If you didn't have the money you'd cajole and you'd beg
There was always lots of tuinol on the old main drag

One evening as I was lying down by Leicester Square
I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls
Between the metal doors at Vine Street I was beaten and mauled
And they ruined my good looks for the old main drag

In the tube station the old ones who were on the way out
Would dribble and vomit and grovel and shout
And the coppers would come along and push them about
And I wished I could escape from the old main drag

And now I'm lying here I've had too much booze
I've been shat on and spat on and raped and abused
I know that I am dying and I wish I could beg
For some money to take me from the old main drag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fRgOpnrBB0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaS9egWrB-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru2a4BlTrtw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYhHbPG97bM

telephone girl i've got your number
you've been recommended to me
you won't spend tonight in slumber
you're gonna send a thrill right through me

i'm a businessman
i'll give you all i can
i'll make it worth your while
if you can make me smile

very surprised Iron Maiden's Charlotte The Harlot and the sequel 22 Acacia Avenue weren't mentioned yet.

i believe 'Charlotte' gets mentioned in two other maiden songs...

I mentioned it. Scroll up, Jamie.

In which the protagonist begins as an anthropologist and at the bridge becomes a john.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2A3bxJu4Q

Better version for the eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UVOPfotYRs

Tecumseh Valley - Townes Van Zandt
Spanish Moon - Little Feat

always liked that janes addiction song - "I love them whores they never judge you, what can you say when your just a whore?

hmm firefox text search fail

I just made a mix of the first 7" singles I bought as a kid, and that Gilder song was one of them. Good thing the family never paid attention to lyrics!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpjfpozus8U

Black Sabbath-Dirty Women

ZZ Top -- Mexican Blackbird

Donovan "Lalena"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q_T0jehqpQ

xpost aka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATjuy0y7Drw

I love the way that Brel rips up any pretenses at politeness and formality in performance and just throws all his physicality into the song...

oh man that is great thank you

The Rolling Stones, "Cocksucker Blues"