The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #68922   Message #3255385
Posted By: MGM·Lion
12-Nov-11 - 12:38 AM
Thread Name: ballads/tunes about ladies of the night
Subject: RE: ballads/tunes about ladies of the night
Unless I have missed them in this long thread, we don't seem to have had ref to the Barrack-St/Peter-St/Patrick-St/Ratcliffe-St family.

Nor to The Magdalene's Lament {I think Frankie Armstrong calls it The Whore's Lament on one of her albums}, about the imprisoned prostitute who attributes her fall to gang-rape ("Four & twenty of Geordie's men Kissed* me against my will-o"), enjoyed her brothel ('tavern-house'*) days but is now being ill-treated in prison ("Now I'm in the correction-house And whipped into my turn-o"), and looks forward hopefully to a reformed & respectable married life on her release ("Then I'll be a wedded wife When my forty days are done-o").

~Michael~

*In this one, I find of particular interest the euphemisms like 'tavern-house' when a brothel is clearly meant, and 'kissed' for an obviously rather more intimate form of congress!