The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #17835   Message #285642
Posted By: Joe Offer
26-Aug-00 - 01:24 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: I Wish I Was a Fascinating Bitch
Subject: ADD: Fascinating Lady ^^
Troll, as promised, here's what I found.
-Joe Offer-
FASCINATING LADY

[A]
Wish I was a fascinating lady
With a past that's fast and a future that is shady.
Sleep all day, work all night,
Live in a house with a little red light.
Once a month, I'd take a short vacation
And drive my customers wild.
Wish I was a fascinating lady
Instead of an innocent child.

[B]
Oh, I wish I were a fascinating bitch.
I'd never be poor, I'd always be rich.
I'd live in a house with a little red light,
And sleep all day and work all night.
And every once in a while I'd take a little rest,
Just to drive my customers wild.
Oh, I wish I were a fascinating bitch,
Instead of a legitimate child.

This bit of fantasizing is common on college campuses, a parallel to the ubiquitous legends of the beautiful young woman who put herself through school as a high-priced call girl.
This is seemingly a parody of a popular song, though the original has not turned up. "Fascinating Bitch" enjoyed a burst of popularity in the 1960s; the Indiana University Folklore Archives contain no less than forty variants of this, and it was reported at UCLA and at Berkeley about the same time. Barre Toelken included a variant of "B," apparently of the same age, in "The Folklore of Academe," in Brunvand, The Study of American Folklore (p. 379). "Fascinating Bitch," however, is said to be older; Cleveland (p. 95) states that it was sung by New Zealand troops in World War II, but gives no text.
The "A" version, plucked from the Indiana University Folklore Archive, dates from 1954 at Michigan State University; the "B" text is from the Taussig collection made in Berkeley between 1958 and 1963.

Source: The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs, Second Edition, Ed Cray, 1992

JRO ^^