I remember it all very well, looking back, was the summer I turned eighteen. We lived in a one-room worn-out shack on the outskirts of New Orleans. We didn't have money for food or rent, to say the least. We was hard-pressed. Mama spent every last penny we had to buy me a dancing dress. Mama washed and combed and curled my hair, and she painted my eyes and lips. Stepped into a satin dancing dress that had a slit in the side, clean up to my hips. It was red, velvet-trimmed, and it fit me good. Staring back from the looking-glass, there stood a woman where a half-grown boy had stood. Here's your one-chance, fancy, don't let me down. Here's your one-chance, fancy, don't let me down. Mama dabbed a little bit of perfume on my neck, and she kissed my cheek. I could see the tears welling up in her troubled eyes as she started to speak. She looked at our pitiful shack, and then she looked at me and took a ragged breath. She said, your paw's run 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 talking, asking, Mama, what do I do? She said, just be nice to the gentlemen, fancy, they'll be nice to you. 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 are now, well, it's up to you. And don't let me down now, your mama's gonna move you uptown. That was the last time I saw Mama the night I left that rickety shack. The welfare people came and took the baby, Mama died, and I aint been back. But the wheels of fate had started to turn, and for me there was no way out. It wasn't very long till I knew exactly what my mama'd been talking about. I knew what I had to do, but I made myself this solemn vow. Said I was gonna be a lady someday, though it didn't matter when or how. I couldn't see spending the rest of my life with my head held down in shame. You know I might have been born just plain white trash, but fancy was my name. Here's your one-chance, fancy, don't let me down. 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. One week later I was pouring his tea in a five-room hotel suite. I charmed a king, a congressman, and the occasional aristocrat. I got me a Georgia mansion and an elegant New York townhouse flat, and I ain't done bad. Now in this life there's a lot of self-righteous hypocrites that call me bad and criticize mama for turning me out no matter how little we had. And though I ain't had to worry about nothing for now on fifteen years, I can still hear the desperation in my poor mama's voice ringing in my ears. 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. And don't let me down now, your mama's gonna move you uptown. Don't let me down now. Let's go. Let's go.