You don’t want to marry me honey
Though just to hear you ask me is sweet
If you did you’d regret it tomorrow
For I’m only a girl of the street
There was a time when I’d gladly have listened
Before I was tainted with shame
But it wouldn’t be fair to you honey
Men laugh when they mention my name
Back there on the farm in Nebraska
I might have said yes to you then
But I thought the world was a playground
Just teeming with Santa Claus men
So I left the old home for the city
To play in its mad, dirty whirl
Never knowing how little of pity, It holds for a slip of a girl
You think I’m still good-looking honey!
But no I am faded and spent
Even Helen of Troy would look seedy
If she followed the pace I went
But that day I came in from the country
With my hair down my back in a curl
Through the length and the breadth of the city
There was never a prettier girl.
I soon got a job in the chorus
With nothing but looks and a form
I had a new man every evening
And my kisses were thrilling and warm
I might have sold them for a fortune
To some old sugar daddy with dough
But youth called to youth for its lover
There was plenty that I didn’t know
Then I fell for the “line” of a “junker”
A slim devotee of hope,
And those dreams in the juice of a poppy
Had got me before I could stop.
But I didn’t care while he loved me
Just to lie in his arms was a delight
But his ardour grew cold and he left me
In a Chinatown “hop-joint” one night.
Well I didn’t care then what happened
A Chink took me under his wing
And down there in a hovel of hell
I laboured for Hop and Ah-Sing
Oh no I’m no longer a “Junker”
The police came and got me one day
And I took the one cure that is certain
That island out there in the bay
Don’t spring that old gag of reforming
A girl hardly ever goes back
Too many are eager and waiting
To guide her feet off of the track
A man can break every commandment
And the world will still lend him a hand
Yet a girl that has loved, but un-wisely
Is an outcast all over the land.
You see how it is don’t you honey
I’d marry you now if I could
I’d go with you back to the country
But I know it won’t do any good
For I’m only a poor branded woman
And I can’t get away from the past
Good-bye and God bless you for asking
But I’ll stick out now till the last
mentalnotes1 