Top 10: Songs about sex workers

Who doesn’t love a bit of filth with their harmonies? How can anyone resist the temptations of sexual suggestion and lurid details of carnal activities? Well, Craig Stephen loves a bit of how’s your father, especially if it involves a strumpet or a gigolo. He’s back with another top 10, specifically looking at songs about sex workers. And just to prove he’s still alive, the site’s lazy-arse editor can’t resist adding an 11th in the form of a genuine red light Kiwi ska-punk classic:

Tubeway Army - Are ‘Friends’ Electric? (1979)

Number one in the UK for weeks, and yet few people would have sussed out what it was actually about, so here’s Gary Numan, the Tory-loving pilot, telling all to a journalist … “the lyrics came from short stories I'd written about what London would be like in 30 years. These machines - "friends" - come to the door. They supply services of various kinds, but your neighbours never know what they really are since they look human. The one in the song is a prostitute, hence the inverted commas. It was released in May 1979 and sold a million copies. I had a No 1 single with a song about a robot prostitute and no one knew.”

Cole Porter - Love For Sale (1930)

In the very conservative context of 1930s America, a white singer singing about her life as a prostitute was too much for many. After all, 1930 was the year Hollywood introduced the Hays Code which forbade the use of profanity and obscenity. ‘Love For Sale’ was labelled as "in bad taste" by one newspaper and radio stations kept a wide berth. So, to try to defuse the moral outrage, singer Kathryn Crawford was replaced by Elizabeth Welch, an African-American singer. It was later covered by Shirley Bassey, Boney M, Elvis Costello, and Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett for a duet.

Blondie - Call Me (1980)

The theme song from the film American Gigolo starring Richard Gere is presented from the point of view of a male escort, despite being sung by Debbie Harry. The Blondie star suggestively purrs for the listener to call her anytime and issues an invitation to call "day or night" because "I'll never get enough". ‘Call Me’ was composed by Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder and contained more than a tinge of electronica. Given Blondie’s huge popularity at the time as they successfully bridged punk, new wave and pop, it was inevitably a worldwide hit and was named in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

 Ramones - 53rd & 3rd (1977)

A gay hustler stands alone on a street corner in New York unsuccessfully trying to earn some cash by turning tricks. When a macho man Vietnam Green Beret challenges him, the hustler slips out his weapon and does the dirty deed. “Then I took out my razor blade/Then I did what God forbade/Now the cops are after me/But I proved that I'm no sissy.” The song references what was once a popular hangout for male prostitution, and where Dee Dee Ramone tried to do business before joining the band. It appears on their much-hailed debut album Ramones.

Queen - Killer Queen (1974)

Queen’s first worldwide hit was about a woman who we learn in the first verse likes the luxuries of life: “She keeps Moët et Chandon/In her pretty cabinet/ ‘Let them eat cake’, she says/Just like Marie Antoinette.” Listening further, you can deduce that the lady in question serves pleasure to the men in high places. “Drop of a hat, she's as willing as/Playful as a pussycat.” 

Sharon O’Neill - Maxine (1983)

It probably said something of New Zealand of the time that there were two versions of the video: one for Kiwi eyes, one for Australians. The New Zealand video is tame and lame, focusing on O’Neill with her Bonnie Tyler-style hair singing along to the song. The one for the Aussie audiences is far more gritty, beginning with ‘Maxine’ out on the streets looking for business. We then see O’Neill pleading with her friend to give it all up, but it’s all in vain. Yes, MOR pop can sometimes tell a good story.

Morrissey - Piccadilly Palare (1990)

He’d later turn to boxing and other working class pursuits but in 1990 Morrissey was singing about male prostitution. “On the rack I was/Easy meat, and a reasonably good buy.” The title is a play on the slang term polari which was first used by male prostitutes in the 19th century and then taken up in the 1960s to disguise activities which were illegal in the UK until 1967. Apparently, Morrissey didn’t particularly like the song and reviewers weren’t entirely sure either. It was the fifth of five singles that were released outside of a studio album, and with ‘November Spawned a Monster’, also issued in 1990, it seemed that a studio album then would’ve been a cruel trick played on his fans.

 The Clash - Janie Jones (1977)

Despite the title, this track from The Clash’s incendiary eponymous debut album is more about an office worker who, having had a gutsful of his tedious job, jumps in his car and heads off to a brothel. Which is where Ms Jones comes in. Janie Jones was a one-time singer, who in the 60s had a minor hit with 'Witches Brew', became infamous for hosting sex parties at her home during the 1970s, and was jailed for ‘controlling prostitutes’.

Goodbye Mr MacKenzie - The Rattler (1989)

I don’t regret giving away records that I felt I didn’t need any more except for one - Good Deeds And Dirty Rags, the debut album by this Edinburgh band. Admittedly it was a mixed bag but it is still worth having for the likes of ‘The Rattler’ and ‘Goodwill City’. The former was released as a single in 1986. It didn’t go anywhere and was reissued three years later. However, it was rarely played on radio then due to it being about a male prostitute and description of what is euphemistically dubbed a sex act.

The Police - Roxanne (1978)

Sting was inspired to write this after seeing working girls operate outside of his hotel room in Paris while on tour. It revolves around a man who falls in love with the eponymous street worker. The narrator attempts to persuade her to give up her work, hence the lyrics: “Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light/Those days are over/You don't have to sell your body to the night.”

Editor’s Choice: Instigators - Hope She’s Alright (1982)

Not to be confused with the 1980s English anarcho-punk band of the same name, these Instigators won Auckland’s ‘battle of the bands’ title in 1981 before hitting the road and going on to enthrall local pub audiences for the best part of the next two years. Along the way, amongst other great tunes, they released a fine ska cover of ‘The Israelites’, followed by this brilliant slice of urgent punk rock. Released on Ripper Records, ‘Hope She’s Alright’ tells the story of a missing prostitute … check it out here:

Classic Album Review: The Police - Reggatta de Blanc (1979)

I once owned a copy of each of the first six singles released by The Police; each one was a seven-inch blue vinyl pressing, complete with the original picture sleeve. Purchased as a set sometime in the (UK) summer of 1980, the conveniently packaged limited edition “six pack” has since, somehow, somewhere, contrived to go awol. On a journey involving more than a decade’s worth of impromptu house guests, several broken relationships, and more grotty bedsits than I care to recall, the entire set was evidently deemed surplus to requirements at one stage or another. Inadvertently abandoned by yours truly, or perhaps sleekitly acquired by a casual acquaintance, I wonder whether someone equally as passionate about the band’s early work has been the beneficiary of a “lucky find” somewhere along the way?

Whatever, I’m no longer the proud owner of that precious vinyl set, and it was only recently I felt compelled to splash out on some sort of token replacement in the form of this album, 1979’s Reggatta de Blanc.

This was the second full-length offering from The Police, and it immediately preceded the release of the six pack – which contained the three singles on here (‘Message In A Bottle’, ‘Walking On The Moon’, ‘The Bed’s Too Big’) and three from the band’s debut, Outlandos D’Amour (‘Roxanne’, ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’, and ‘So Lonely’).

Reggatta was a big improvement on the band’s raw debut outing, a far more polished effort, and it stands out as the landmark work ahead of the band’s more commercial Synchronicity (post-1983) period. This album offers a snapshot of the band on its way up, and the success of its first two chart-topping singles (‘Message’ and ‘Walking’) had helped to expose the band to a much wider audience.



The Six Pack

It also finds the three-piece Police somewhere close to a collective peak; the still hungry and ambitious Sting reserving his best vocal delivery for the album’s slower moments, while Andy Summers’ unique guitar craft and Stewart Copeland’s virtuoso drumming and percussion supplement perfectly the egocentric vocalist’s (still occasionally rudimentary) bass-playing.

The result is an album awash with offbeat rhythms, tight white reggae, and plenty of stirring and quirky lyrical twists, which more than make up for the odd corny moment and a somewhat uneven track-listing.

The dense and brooding ‘Bring On The Night’ rivals opener ‘Message In A Bottle’ as the best track on the album, and by extension, one of the very best things The Police ever did, while the skanky ‘Bed’s Too Big Without You’ is another one right out of the top drawer.

 

I’m not so keen on the more uptempo tracks, Sting’s vocal often being reduced to a fuzz, and almost paradoxically Summers’ guitar work somehow feels compromised and far less effective on the more rock-orientated numbers. Ditto the tracks credited to Stewart Copeland. Although, Copeland’s ability as a drummer – as one of the very best on the planet – easily offsets any shortcomings he may have had as a fledgling composer.

 

Mine was but a brief flirtation with The Police, but right down to my slightly scruffy soft-cover US-import CD copy of the album, the punky-reggae influences apparent on Reggatta de Blanc capture the essence of that short-lived affair exquisitely.

I was never overly impressed by Synchronicity, or indeed by the two albums that preceded it – Zenyatta Mondatta (1980) and Ghost In The Machine (1981) – and it’s difficult not to feel that The Police’s brief spell of global dominance also tended to rob the band of the mercurial charm that made it so unique and appealing in the first instance.

After the release of ‘Every Breath You Take’ had transported The Police into an entirely different stratosphere commercially, the writing was on the wall, and by the mid-Eighties an increasingly irritating Sting was in the process of launching a solo career that would take him into the netherworlds of folk and world music … and the band, mercifully, was no more. For the time being at least.