I remember it all very well lookin' back it was the summer I turned eighteen
We lived in a one room, rundown shack on the outskirts of New Orleans
We didn't have money for food or rent to say the least we were hard pressed
Then Mama spent every last penny we had to buy me a dancin' dress

Mama washed and combed and curled my hair and she painted my eyes and lips
Then I stepped into a satin' dancin' dress That had a slit on the side clean up to my hip
It was red velvet trim and it fit me good
Standin' back from the lookin' glass there stood a woman where a half grown kid had stood

She said here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down
She said here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down

Mama dabbled a little bit of perfume on my neck and she kissed my cheek
Then I saw the tears wellin' up in her troubled eyes as she started to speak
She looked at a pitiful shack and then she looked at me and took a ragged breath
She said your Pa's runned off and I'm real sick and the baby's gonna starve to death

She handed me a heart shaped locket that said "To thine own self be true"
And I shivered as I watched a roach crawl across the toe of my high heeled shoe
It sounded like somebody else that was talkin' askin' "Mama what do I do?"
She said just be nice to the gentlemen Fancy, they'll be nice to you

She said here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down
Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down
Lord forgive me for what I do,
But if you want out, well it's up to you
Don't let me down now, your Mama's gonna move you uptown

Well, that was the last time I saw my Ma when I left that rickety shack
The welfare people came and took the baby, mama died and I ain't been back
But the wheels of fate had started to turn and for me there was no way out
And it wasn't very long 'til I knew exactly what my Mama'd been talkin' about

I knew what I had to do and I made myself this solemn vow
That I's gonna be a lady someday though I didn't know when or how
But I couldn't see spending the rest of my life with my head hung down in shame
You know I might have been born just plain white trash but Fancy was my name

She said here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down
She said here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down

It wasn't long after a benevolent man took me in off the street
And one week later I was pourin' his tea in a five room hotel suite

I charmed a king, congressman and an occasional aristocrat
Then I got me a Georgia mansion in an elegant New York townhouse flat
And I ain't done bad

Now in this world there's a lot of self-righteous
hipocrates that would call me bad
And criticize Mama for turning me out no matter how little we had

But though I ain't had to worry 'bout nothin' for nigh on fifteen years
I can still hear the desperation in my poor Mama's voice ringin' in my ear

Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down
O Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down
Lord, forgive me for what I do
But if you want out well it's up to you
Now don't let me down
Your Mama's gonna move you uptown

I guess she did

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