Question about "I've Never Been to Me (Charlene)"

When it first came out, it rode a frau wave of “my life hasn’t turned out like I had wanted.” It tapped into the fantasy life of many middle aged women.

Gay men have an entirely different relationship with the song. They can identify with “I’ve spent my life exploring the subtle whoring” yet they affirm how maudlin, yet cheesy, the song really is.

This song could have only gotten attention in the 1970s genre when these type songs were popular (much like I am woman, hear me roar). If it had been released in mid-1980s, it would have been laughed right out of the recording studio.

But wait R1. It was re-released in 1983 and that's when it became a big hit. So that is the mid 80s.

Hey Lady! YOU lady!

I think it’s hilarious, but the pathos cannot be denied. The lyrics tell the person with the simple life that they won. The woman undressed by kings envies the frau. You know what paradise is? It’s a LIE.

And the things she wasn't supposed to see...what were those things, anyway? A king without his hairpiece?

So paradise is going to Georgia and California?

I like the song.

It was released in 1977 and bombed. It was rereleased in 1982, partly because someone at Motown heard it and pushed it.

The early 80s was still a time of musical change. Disco was dying but the new styles hadn’t yet taken hold. Donna Summer still had good stuff, Bette Midler’s The Rose and Madonna’s Live To Tell were much better than Charlene’s campy one hit wonder.

The song doesn't have an 80s feel to it. At all.

I love the song, but really in a nostalgic way, since I was a kid when it came out. In reality, it is a terrible, schmaltzy, sexist song that tells women that if they don't get married and have children they will regret it:

But you know what truth is?

It's that little baby you're holding

And it's that man you fought with this morning

The same one you are gonna make love to tonight

That's truth that's love

Don't travel the world, don't learn things, don't stretch beyond the limited expectations for your sex or:

Sometimes I've been to crying for unborn children

That might have made me complete

Really dreadful.

For perspective, gay men were wailing this in NYC piano bars.

Vulgarians like bathos because it enables self-pity.

DLers see through it and enjoy it for its camp value. But the gay "camp with love" is an understanding kind of aesthetic.

I was a tween in 1982 and listened to Top 40 music all the time. But I never heard of this song until the last few years?

I don't remember them playing it on the pop stations. And trust me I would have remembered this.

I thought she was a Brit. She apparently moved to the UK and worked in a sweet shop after her initial tenure on Motown was a flop.

[Quote] I was a tween in 1982 and listened to Top 40 music all the time. But I never heard of this song until the last few years? I don't remember them playing it on the pop stations. And trust me I would have remembered this.

Do you remember "I Could Never Miss You (More Than I Do)" by Lulu?

The song was a paean to the new conservatism that was slowly clawing its way back to the mainstream. Hey girls, we’ve had too much freedom, so now let’s rein it back in.

What self-respecting gay wouldn’t instinctively loathe that sentiment and want to undermine it through parody?

"Subtle whoring" is one of the most memorable lyrics in pop music.

Yep, r17. It’s right up there with “the Isle of Greece.”

No, they are not comparable.

Who thought it was a good idea for The Temptations to record it? Did they play it on Lite Downlow 105 FM?

OP. My darling, it’s camp.

Gay men mock it because we can spot campy cheesiness from miles away.

Straight people who collect Precious Moments figurines and hang up "pictures" with "sayings" on their walls take all those shmaltz literally. The camp goes over their little heads.

OP, Priscilla would like a word with you.

The Nancy Wilson version ends all others.

Great. Now this fucking song will in my head all weekend. I have made up lyrics in my head to this ridiculous song: “I’ve been undressed in Queens” and “I moved like jello in Montebello and showed ‘em all my twat”.

I think the Georgia in question is the former Soviet Republic. It’s a kind of exotic land that no one much visits. The American Georgia isn’t an impressive place to have traveled.

[quote]And the things she wasn't supposed to see...what were those things, anyway?

"Can't Stop the Music."

The problem I have with the Nancy Wilson version is that she talks the middle section. She has an amazing voice and I wish she’d sing the song rather than speaking it.

I love the new lyrics for The Temptations.

I’ve been to China and Asia Mina.

This must have been the time when Berry Gordy was putting the entire Motown behind making Diana Ross a star because he certainly wasn’t giving The Temptations any attention.

I'm a woman and I remember this song from the '70's. I hated it and I didn't know anyone who liked it. Everyone thought it was crap.

No. Past "Mahogany," Gordy wasn't a big help to Ross. "The Boss" album was not given the push it deserved, on either side of the Atlantic.

[quote]I’ve been to China and Asia Mina.

I think that Asia Minor.

I get emotional reminiscing about my time on the Isle of Greece.

OP, I thought this was in reference to Charlene of Monaco.

R25 "I moved like jello in Montebello and showed ‘em all my twat”. I cannot stop crying.

[quote] I think that Asia Minor.

But in the song, they pronounce it Mina to rhyme with China.

Here is Marilyn on Solid Gold. Whenever I heard the line discontented mother I thought muhtha.

Howard Keel?!?? So bizarre with crazy alternative lyrics.

Sorry about my deep dive in YouTube. I loved this song as a teen for both aspects and am enjoying all of the links I am finding. A little history of the song.

[quote] So bizarre with crazy alternative lyrics.

Same stupid lyrics as The Temptations sing above. Apparently, someone felt they should write a male version as well.

Well, men don't tend to think about procreation as "completing" a man.

"I've seen some Best Men crawl..."

over and suck and my Big Cock

R41

Fraus love anything that justifies them pumping out crotchfruit and never doing anything else with their lives, allowing them to look down on the "whores" who did such risqué things as visit the Isle of Greece (there's apparently just one.)

The reason I went to YouTube was so share this by Benelecreme. I love what she does with it.

R39 Apparently the male version is the first one according to the short history of the song.

A drag queen performing this song is redundant.

[quote]Hey Lady! YOU lady!

In my mind, I always hear this line as Jerry Lewis would perform it.

Was Charlene not the original artist to release the song?

Definitely heard it in 1977 and remember dissecting it with friends in one of our basements, especially scandalized by the veiled reference to abortion.

[quote]Definitely heard it in 1977 and remember dissecting it with friends in one of our basements, especially scandalized by the veiled reference to abortion.

Were you smoking pot with the cast of "That 70s Show"?

Here is how it should have been sung

It’s too bad someone didn’t perform a response song to this.

The original, apparently.

Thanks for the link, R38.

So, the male version of the song came first. Knowing that questions all the "frau" stuff.

Kirsty MacColl's "What Do Pretty Girls Do" is almost a rewrite, without the sexism.

It went to #1 in Australia, Canada, Ireland and the UK.

Oddly enough though, while it got to #3 in the US on Cashbox and Billboard it only got to #7 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

Charlene had recorded "I've Never Been to Me" in 1976 for her debut album, the self-titled Charlene, a Prodigal release (P6 10015S1), and the ballad contained a spoken section. "Songs of Love" came out six months later in 1977 and was essentially a re-issue of Charlene, having a slightly different track listing but retaining "I've Never Been to Me" without the spoken bridge.

The Hot 100 peak of "I've Never Been to Me" in its original formal release without the monologue was #97

[quote]In 1982, Scott Shannon, a disc jockey at Tampa radio station WRBQ-FM, began playing the "I've Never Been to Me" track off the Charlene album (with the original recitative), and response from local listeners was such as to motivate Shannon, a former Motown employee, to alert Motown president Jay Lasker to the track's hit potential. Lasker located Charlene who, discouraged by the poor performance of her 1977 Motown releases and by the label's decision not to release a second album she had recorded, had left the music industry and met and married an Englishman, subsequently accompanying him to England and taking a job at a sweetshop in Ilford.

It subsequently rose as high as No. 3 on the Hot 100, where it held for three weeks during May and June, prevented from further chart movement by "Don't Talk to Strangers" by Rick Springfield and "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.

[quote]And the things she wasn't supposed to see...what were those things, anyway?

It involved Nancy Reagan and everyone on an aircraft carrier.

I remember hearing this song on the radio in the station wagon as my mom drove me to the grocery store. It had a nice melody and the lady's singing voice was pleasant.

However, the lyrics are a shit show. This woman has done fucking EVERYTHING and now she's whining that she doesn't have a husband to cook and clean for and that she didn't pop out a kid. The song is a Republican chauvinist's dream: the only path to happiness for a woman is to get married, pop out babies and dedicate your life to being your husband's subservient helpmeet, maid, and nanny. Forget a career and wild experiences...those things are for men.

r57

Oh good grief, take a chill pill dude. It's just one in a line of many schmaltzy songs like "Love Child," "At Seventeen" and "I Just Called To Say I Love You."

R58, those songs don't have a political agenda designed to shame women.

Obviously it was written by men because no woman who has a baby is going to make mad passionate love to her husband when he comes home.

I could tell this shit was awful even when I was nine. I mean, there was schmaltzy stuff in the Top 40 of the time (Journey's "Open Arms," etc) but this was on a whole other level. It wasn't fun pop like Sheena Easton or Olivia or Kim Carnes. I didn't have a clue what camp was back then, or I would have immediately recognized it as that. The cutesy, affected vocal; the nauseatingly saccharine arrangement; the clumsy, overwrought, moralizing lyrics. It remains a mystery why anyone dug this ungainly monstrosity out from the dustbin of history and why it became a hit years later. I guess resurgent conservatism is the only thing that can explain it.

I put it on my Apple Music playlist a couple years back because I wanted to hear the familiar melody again. It was OK, even with the sappy lyrics. UNTIL she started doing that cringy speech at the end in an overdramatic voice. I touched the skip button on my phone and hoped that no one nearby on the train heard it through my earbuds.

You haven't heard Lorenzo yet.

Hey hausfrau, you hausfrau

Cursing at your life

You're an alcoholic mother

A morbidly obese wife

I've no doubt

You dream about the things you'll never do

Like see your toes again or have a husband that doesn’t leave you black and blue.

Ooh, I've vomited vino in a casino in Reno and anywhere I could run

Took the scat of a preacher man

As he called me fat just for fun.

It is just an easy song to make fun of but not really bad. It was kind of referenced by poster “Priscilla” but this is what I always think of first.

[quote]And the things she wasn't supposed to see...what were those things, anyway?

Danny Thomas's glass-topped coffee table.

She intones the words "I've spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free" with such deadly earnestness. How did anyone, anywhere, take this song seriously?

I've always assumed that the narrator is Down and Out. She approaches the lady, you lady in public and tries to warn her about the dangers of yacht girl life.

If only Ghislaine Maxwell had taken it seriously...

Things a woman ain't s'posed to see: Differential equations

Math isn't for ladies, it upsets the humors, and makes them barren.

[quote] Sometimes I've been to crying for unborn children That might have made me complete. I took the sweet Life I've never knew I'd be bitter from the sweet

She's pissed off and angry about all the abortions she had from getting pregnant and sluting around.

It's actually funnier in TAOPQOTD, when Mitzi kicks the baby off the stage.

Hy mama, hey mama

Insta-ing your mundane life

gotta be a perfect mother

gotta be a perfect wife

You dream about the things you'll never do

I wish someone told me that college and nice clothes are overrated like I want to tell you.

Ooh, I've been to college and stores that weren't Walmart and I've been on a plane.

Took the hand of a man with no neckbeard

And had sex without getting knocked up

But I ran out of places and friendly faces

Because I had to be free

All the unemployed overweight mamas didn't like their husbands looking at me.

Please lady please Karen

Don't just walk away

'Cause I have this need to tell you

Why I'm all alone today

with a fat bank account

and time to spend with my friends and creative hobbies

R68, then she tries to recruit the lady into her Lula Roe multi-level-marketing downline.

Things a woman ain't s'posed to see: The Meat Rack on Fire Island.

Things a woman ain't s'posed to see: a corporate meeting room

But is Charlene still crying over unborn children to this day? Or for the.even more cringeworthy follow up single with Stevie Wonder. That one should have been aborted.

The lyrics don't mean she had abortions. Maybe she just used birth control because she didn't want to be trapped in a conventional life.

An unfertilized egg is not an unborn baby, hon.

But a couple of them could have been potential children if she had gotten laid at the right time without using birth control, R78.

Instead, she responsibly used birth control, and it worked. But now she and the other lady are both experiencing that feeling that "the grass is greener on the other side". The lady posts in reddit everyday about how her husband plays video games all day and won't help take care of the kids.

No. Unborn means "stopped from being born."

The song only works if you imagine it being sung by an old whore who is now a bag lady screaming at people as they go into Target.

Faye Dunaway. Got it.

[quote] She intones the words "I've spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free" with such deadly earnestness. How did anyone, anywhere, take this song seriously?

Because they had been to Nice and the isle of Greece and had been undressed by kings.

She comes from that long line of performers with only one name:

Cher, Madonna, Lulu

Yoyoma.

Damn you weren’t kidding with the YouTube comments from the straights

Some comments, one from a frau “Such a beautiful song, it actually took me out of my post nasal depression !”

“This song is the meaning of the word deep, such amazing lyrics”

Straights don’t get camp

Things a woman ain't s'posed to see: Her father, brother, and husband at the Meat Rack on Fire Island.

[Quote] Things a woman ain't s'posed to see: Her unborn babies out back of the hospital.

It’s poignant and bitter sweet

I think Charlene should bring out a How To guide for Subtle Whoring.

She recorded that schlock song in the 70s. It was released by a freak accident in 1982 as a single.

No. It was a single in 1977 too.

[quote]Danny Thomas's glass-topped coffee table.

Lucille Balls' face without make-up

Bette Davis at 6 in the morning.

Thank you R63 for the...experience of

Lorenzo Pollastri singing this song

[quote] She comes from that long line of performers with only one name: Cher, Madonna, Lulu

Wing

[quote]Some comments, one from a frau “Such a beautiful song, it actually took me out of my post nasal depression !”

I suffer from post-nasal depression. Maybe this song will help.

I don't like to over-generalize

but YouTube posters are sort of the Walmart shoppers of internet posters

But does the song with post-natal drip?

[R25] OH MY GOD I will never get this out of my head, damn you. “I moved like jello in Montebello and showed ‘em all my twat”

The song "It Ain't Easy Comin' Down" is a good song, as is the B/W from "I"ve Never Been To Me," called "Somewhere In My Life."

Her version of "All That Love Went To Waste" isn't a patch on Madeline Bell's or Dee Dee Warwick's.

R15 that sounds like something the queens who listen to Donna Summer, Tavares and Manhattan Transfer would listen to.

I was underdressed by kings, and I saw some things, that a gayling ain't s'posed to see.

[Quote] that sounds like something the queens who listen to Donna Summer, Tavares and Manhattan Transfer would listen to.

I'm confident that they wouldn't end sentences with a preposition.

That was DREADFUL, R20. I never knew there was a male version, let alone that it came before the one I know and love (yeah, I love some campy schmaltz occasionally).

R37 I can tell he had a potentially good voice, but by had no idea or at least no direction in the way he used it. Embarrassing. And he had been in "Dallas" recently at that point, and had had a Hollywood career of course, but a "farewell tour"? How many people came out to see that?!

R38 Thanks for sharing that! I love a deep dive from time to time, and I enjoy a bit of backstory. Charlene seems sweet, and it was nice to hear it from her.

She lost me at the *subtle* whoring . . .

R25 R34 R100

"I moved like jello in Montebello and showed ‘em all my twat”.

In Biarritz I flashed my tits for sangria, and smoked pot

Seriously, why didn't they change the "isle of Greece" lyric? "Islands of Greece" would have worked just as well.

Islands of Greece adds a syllable, but isles of Greece would retain the structure.

I always figured the "Isle of Greece" thing was just one more way the writer was laughing at the rubes who would like the song. "These idiots have no idea there's more than just one Greek isle. And they think traveling to Georgia is glamorous."

I've been to Kalispell, and the Wisconsin Dells Where I drank a Pabst on a raft.

I got jailed for drunken disorder at South of the Border, after turning tricks on a cot.

Sniffed so much cocaine on a train thru Fort Wayne, there was blood in all my snot.

I moved with grace through every jet-set place and flirted in Myrtle Beach.

Met a heel on a Ferris wheel, who squirted in my peach.

As a non-native English speaker, I've always been confused by the lyric "I've been to crying for unborn children," but I suppose the 'normal' rules of grammar don't apply and I should just sit back and "enjoy."

"I've been to crying" is a signpost to the narrator's po' country roots. She was essentially a "Fancy."

R112 Bonked on a hang glider, with Snoop and Flo Rida, got caught in a gnarly updraft.

[quote] And they think traveling to Georgia is glamorous."

Georgia was where she would have gotten prime black dick. Many nice Southern gentlemen there.

It makes more sense on Randy Crawford's version. She sounds southern.

Stupid ass song to make losers feel better about never taking risks in life.

I’ve never been to you either….

Heard it’s shitty.

Oo-oo

I’ve been to Israel and spilled some jizz meal

While I slept with the hot IDF

I Tik Tocked in Bangkok and Grindred a hot jock

And showed him what I got

But I ran into trouble with Muriel’s double

When she shut down my whole damn account

I’ve been to DataLounge but I’ve never been to me.

I've been to Podunk

And I got so drunk

That I was raped by some queens.

[quote]And they think traveling to Georgia is glamorous."

No, the line, "I've been to Georgia and California" is a way of saying I've been to the East Coast of the USA and the West Coast and it implies everywhere in between. The use of Georgia and California is for the rhyme or rather near-rhyme in this case.

[quote]Her version of "All That Love Went To Waste" isn't a patch on Madeline Bell's or Dee Dee Warwick's.

OMG!!! I thought I was the only one who ever hear of Madeline Bell. She is fantastic.

I always thought Georgia referred to the country, not the state. California to Georgia is all of the US and Europe and wasn’t Georgia known for its brothels?

Howard Keel does the definitive performance of the "male version":

R126 meet R37

But it’s so weird it should be highlighted twice.

[quote]the Isle of Greece

Just the one, dear?

[quote]And the things she wasn't supposed to see...what were those things, anyway?

Hillary's emails, Rose.

[quote]written by Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch

Says it all. Now go make a a sandwich and the suck my dick, bitch!

Hey, lady! YOU LADY!!! Wanna hear more about my glamorous live?

I licked an ole dyke off the Jersey Turnpike just to get a puff of her grass.

Became a slatern on the Isle of Staten, taking thug dick up my ass.

^ keep going 👀

To R130: this may not balance it out, but feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me" was written by two men as well.

I was 10 and received a K-Tel album with this song kicking off the B-Side.

I definitely sung it into a hairbrush for my little sister.

OP You don't get it because you're a dumb whore with no sense of irony.

Isn't the song written from the perspective of a dumb whore?

No. The lady, you lady is the dumb whore.

I licked French clits in Biarritz, before I met a Swiss Miss,

With her I scissored during an Alpine blizzard

As we sipped cocoa in a chalet.

I made my home on the Hill of Rome

And used olive oil as lube...

never stop with the new improved lyrics / ........ please DL...more!

Whoooa, I've been to Lowes And the Isle of Lesbos While I've sipped champagne from a twat I've moved like Ellen on Mount St. Helen And showed 'em what I've got I've been dressed by drag kings And I've seen some things That a cis gal ain't supposed to see I've been to paradise But I've never been to me

Whoooa, I've been to Lowes

And the Isle of Lesbos

While I've sipped champagne from a twat

I've moved like Ellen on Mount St. Helen

And showed 'em what I've got

I've been dressed by drag kings

And I've seen some things That a cis gal ain't supposed to see

I've been to paradise

But I've never been to me

Bravo R141.

"I've never been in me."

Gays can relate.

The song is much funnier if you imagine it being sung to a random stranger on 5th Avenue by Melania Trump.

"I've Never Been to Me" is low-hanging fruit for uninspired drag queens.

R145 It may be now, but it is the perfect drag queen song.

[quote] this may not balance it out, but feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me" was written by two men as well.

As was “I am woman hear me roar”.

[quote] It may be now, but it is the perfect drag queen song.

Indeed. It was the opening number in Priscilla.

I can see Bonnie Franklin as Ann Romano singing this song in front of a mirror on One Day at a Time

That is all…

R149, Her whoring is not nearly subtle enough.

Instead of a "male version" there needs to a be a version sung from the young mother's perspective:

Hey Lady! YOU Lady! Why u stalking me? ... I have friends on In-sta-Gram, and I live a very full life And my name's not lady. I have a name, and that name's Hil-AR-ia.

"undressed by kings"

Hey, Lady! I never front, you stupid cunt. Lionel Richie sang just for me on the Jersey Shore.

"Charlene, you're once, twice, sixty-nine times a whooooooooore."

This song needs to be made into a Broadway show.

Mary Testa can have her first nude scene.

CHARLENE: "Hey, lady! You lady! Cursing at your life. You're a discontented mother. And a regimented wife."

LADY: "Fuck off, you insulting cunt. You don't know shit about my life!"

LADY: "Bag lady! Hag lady! I've got a knife. And I'm a real mutha. I'll end your life!"

If it was recorded today, R156 would be followed out by the whipping out of a cellphone, and the beginning of a video recording.

Coming soon to YouTube!

There should have been an answer song.

Charlene was the first Karen.

R152 Apparently, the thing she wasn't s'posed to see was a mirror.

Bonnie Franklin as Ann Romano does HER version of “I’ve Never Been To Me”

“Hey Annie, hey Annie! Cursing at your life, you’re a dysfunctional mother and a divorced wife “….

I wish I'd had someone like Charlene to talk to me. Back when I was a young whippersnapper.

[quote] I think Charlene should bring out a How To guide for Subtle Whoring.

Mark me down for a copy. I’ve got the whoring part down pat — believe me! — but how does one make it “subtle”?

I've Never Been to Me: The Melanija Knavs Story

(In her case Georgia really is the Georgian SSR)

[quote] The song doesn't have an 80s feel to it. At all.

The song was written (by men) in or around 1976. It is a cabaret tune, that really only works in a live setting. It is a wonder that it was a pop chart hit in the 80s.

I always visualized this song as a drunk lady slumped over in a bar bathroom harassing other ladies as they came in to pee.

Pee on me!

How many times is this subject going to get re-done?

And again:

And again:

And another:

More:

And there's more...

I could go on, but I think that's enough. What's the deal with constantly keeping something going about this song?

Methinks PoisonedDragon has way too much time on her delicate little hands.

It took five minutes, R175, plus the realization that, across the little amount of time I've spent here over the years, I've seen this topic posted again and again and again...

Somebody has too much time on their delicate little hands, and it's not me.

So it's illegal now to post about Charlen's ouevre because PoisonHands doesn't like that. Got it.

Nope. Just like it's not illegal to point out that a troll (or a troll cohort) is obsessed with it, and serially spams the Datalounge with threads about it.

I don't dislike the song. I read a couple of those threads with interest, and even responded on one or two of them. But here it is again, and I have no doubt this won't be the last one. But you have to admit that repeatedly starting threads about the same topic dozens of times, some only a few weeks apart, is trolling.

[Quote] I could go on, but I think that's enough.

No, keep going. Give us that dressing down, King.

[Quote] But you have to admit that repeatedly starting threads about the same topic dozens of times, some only a few weeks apart, is trolling.

If enough people reply to make it a successful thread, what's the diff?

[Quote] PoisonedDragon

I see most of your threads average about 25 replies...

I have a voice

and I will not be silenced by Poisoned Dragon!

This is literal violence!

[quote]No, keep going. Give us that dressing down, King.

Unlike some, I know when enough's enough.

You're seriously stung - look at the continuing comebacks at R179, R180, and R181.

And look! a far right sock at R182. :D

Go fix your mascara, hon - weeping makes it run. You look like a raccoon.

[quote] When it first came out, it rode a frau wave of “my life hasn’t turned out like I had wanted.” It tapped into the fantasy life of many middle aged women.

Did '70s fraus cradle mugs? Did they Live Love Laugh?

[quote]Go fix your mascara, hon - weeping makes it run. You look like a raccoon.

Her life is so full she has to come here and count threads about Charlene

I've been around this dump since the internet was born, and "I moved like jello in Montebello and showed ‘em all my twat” is one of the funniest things ever written here.

A tip o' the wig to whatever queen came up with that.

I've seen massive peens

In New Orleans

and swallowed buckets of spunk

I've taken a load

from a soldier's choad

and slept with him in his bunk

I was laughing so hard at this thread last night I had to close the browser window so my snickering didn’t wake my partner up. This is a terrible song but you all are hilarious. 🤣🤣🤣

[quote]I've moved like Ellen on Mount St. Helen...

Genius!

Every person who disagrees with R183 is a sock puppet. Every idea PoisonedDragon doesn't like is literal violence inflicted on dragon bodies.

I. Must. Control. EVERY. THING!

The song works best if you imagine the "Hey Lady" part being done in Jerry Lewis's voice.

r192 meet r46

I always think of the speaker as some crazy old harridan like E. Jean Carroll.

Maybe someone could write a short epistolary book out of this song to cash in. "Letters to a Young Billie Eilish"

I’d like to see this sung as a chorus piece for a grade school Parent’s Night. 🤣

R194 is some putrid MAGA loon.

I think the fact that this came out and played on the airwaves had a lot to do with its success.

*IN THE SPRING! That its chart success was in the Spring.

I remember hearing it on Top 40 radio and thinking it was utterly bizarre. Of course, I was a teenage boy and had no idea what she was talking about. Also, just curious, is Charlene black? At the time I thought she was white. Given how "easy listening" the song was, I pictured a conservative Barbara Mandrell type.

[Quote] just curious, is Charlene black?

Videos of her have been posted throughout this thread. You didn't even have to click on them. Observing the thumbnails would have answered your question.

Does any wit care write a verse about a PoisonedDragon?

The most shocking thing about this song is the lyricist knew the correct pronunciation of Nice.

If you been to Nice, you know it's Nice. Ditto Greece.

R200 [whiny, scoldy, childish, nasal voice]: "Observing the thumbnails would have answered your question."

You really get your jollies doing that sort of thing? Shaddap.

R193 meet a shoe up your ass.

This was a song about a gambling addiction, that was changed later on

The line was originally, ...That costs too much to have price...I've never been to me...but I've been to a pair of dice.

[Quote] That costs too much to have price

ESL?

And it's that man you fought with this morning The same one whose going to slap you and force his penis into your mouth as soon as he gets home. That's truth, that's love

Do you have free parking?

Zzzzzzz...

This should follow R187 lyrics

I've been to paradise

But I've never been for free

Did you meet Larry Levan?

I was there was a Christmas version of this song.

r207

That's another reason it was rewrote.

I sucked a lot of cock

Under the Dick Dock

And showed P-Town what I’ve got…

In Trump Tower, let bad man devour my Slovenian flower, 45 seconds I never get back.

His toadstool dick made hardly a prick as he slobbered on my new rack.

I turned some tricks with a bunch of hicks, out behind the Burger King.

Whatever their size, for a serving of fries, I'd go down on their smelly thing.

[Quote] The problem I have with the Nancy Wilson version is that she talks the middle section. She has an amazing voice and I wish she’d sing the song rather than speaking it.

Nancy said "Fuck the melody!"

Hey, you know what paradise is? It's FAN-FUCKIN' TASTIC

A fantasy I've lived about people and places, that are better than imagined

But you know what truth is? That babies crap and smell bad

And it's that man you fought with this morning, that knifes you and gets off because the glove doesn't fit

That's truth that's love

The "crying for unborn children/that might have made me complete" — do we think they were abortions, or was she just so busy moving like Harlow in Monte Carlo that she never got around to a relationship and pregnancy?

^ Probably both. What a dumb slut.

[quote] [R37] I can tell he had a potentially good voice, but by had no idea or at least no direction in the way he used it. Embarrassing. And he had been in "Dallas" recently at that point, and had had a Hollywood career of course, but a "farewell tour"? How many people came out to see that?!

I'd say Keel was probably much more popular in the UK than the US. During his time on Dallas he released two top forty albums in the UK, and another that peaked at #51. He also had successful concert tours of the UK, at the time. So I'd imagine, a farewell tour was warranted. And that clip is from the perfect show. I'd imagine Bruce Forsyth and Keel probably appealed to similar audiences.

Some of the lyrics are bad, but they are in the original one as well. I think Keel's rendition is pretty good, because the song sorta screams for an older person to sing it.

Someone up above mentioned Fancy and it does feel like the flipside of that story. In Fancy you have a whore that is satisfied with her life, in this one the whore isn't. I would now, like to hear Reba cover it. Also. Charlene in the music video looks like she stole Loretta Lynn's dress from Coal Miner's Daughter.

She moved like Harlow, wore a shirt that said "I blow"

I went to Brussels and got into a tussle with a tranny protecting her turf. Did some meth with Johnny Depp and took him for all he was worth. Fucked a donkey as a man yelled out “honky” when I rolled around in the dirt. Showed my vagina to the leader of China, and all I got was this tee shirt.

Does Utah have a state song? This could be it.

[Quote] The "crying for unborn children/that might have made me complete" — do we think they were abortions, or was she just so busy moving like Harlow in Monte Carlo that she never got around to a relationship and pregnancy?

If she had never been pregnant, she wouldn't sing of children, she'd sing of a child. She had experience.

Here’s a karaoke video you fat whores can sing along to.

That is if you can stop laughing long enough to get any of the lyrics out.

The YouTube posters like it...

because they're all WHORES!

[quote]Someone up above mentioned Fancy and it does feel like the flipside of that story. In Fancy you have a whore that is satisfied with her life,

Why, I Never!

And I never had a roach crawl across the toe of my ivory shoe!

Oh, I've been to Bruges and to Baton Rouge

Anywhere I could go

I rode like Tonto through old Toronto

Except Tonto wasn't a ho

I met some queens down in New Orleans who taught me how to go down.

With no gag reflex, I had lots of sex with every passed-out wino in town.

I've done some crimes and I've pulled some triggers.

And countless times I've been raped by [unintelligible]

R38. Thanks for that youtube link. Answers a number of questions. In that less than 6 minute video there's reference to Jaws, ONJ, practically Willy Wonka and at times she looks like Stevie Nicks. Most importantly didn't realize there was actual behind the scenes pain involved. I've now almost been to me.