Fred Partington's Daughter - Del Amitri

I was sitting in this five-star place, going nowhere fast

When she caught my attention through the bottom of my glass

She was a waitress in a hotel above this smoky bar

She got up at dawn for breakfast and worked on till it got dark

And at six o’clock when her shift was up she’d drink the night away

Well, wouldn’t you if you served gentlemen all day?

Well, she told me where she came from was a petty kind of town

How her parents became born-agains after her brother got knocked down

And how she found the magazines in the boot of Daddy’s car

And he told her he was weak sometimes, just like all gentlemen are

And in the summer she’d work in his shop and then cry the night away

Well, wouldn’t you if you served gentlemen all day?

So she left her home and family one cloudy afternoon

And she came here with her girlfriend who had found them both a room

And every day they’d wake up early and go looking for a wage

In high-heels and make-up they would lie about their age

And her first job as a barmaid, she’d just dream her shift away

Well, wouldn’t you if you served gentlemen all day?

Then one day by the dole office a car window rolled down

And a gentleman asked for directions to her old home town

And it transpired he knew her family and he owned a string of bars

So he offered her a job if she would kiss him in his car

And so it was that she accepted an advance of one week’s pay

Well, wouldn’t you if you served gentlemen all day?

And as she told me all these tales she picked a scab around her wrist

That she confessed was self-inflicted with a whiskey glass like this

And though she gave her name and number to me, I did not give mine

She said maybe I should call her for some fun some time

And the funniest thing was that that name stuck in my head

And eight months later it was in a headline that I read

They had pulled her out the river in that same black dress

And she lay there quite the lady for the gentlemen of the press

And that picture in the paper looked so small and far away

Well, wouldn’t you if you served gentlemen all day?