help needed to identify a song (1 Viewer)

[andrew markworthy]

Here's a really tricky one for you guys.

(1) released sometime between 1979 and 1981 (probably 1980).
(2) female solo artist and very much a one hit wonder
(3) got quite high up the UK charts and was I believe a very minor US hit
(4) the song's theme is difficult to summarise, but basically is about how women with loose morals seem to succeed whilst 'good girls' get nowhere
(5) the person singing it is basically commenting on how Sally who lived in the same neighbourhood had loose morals and became famous. The singer didn't ('I was good, you see'). From this she extrapolates the principle that you have to have loose morals to get on in life. [I should add that the song is a lot funnier and less crude than this bald description has made it sound].
(6) Other lines I can recall (I think correctly) are 'the only women makin' it are women who are shakin' it' and 'no-one cares that she's a [what is obviously going to be 'bitch' is replaced with a sound of a gasp].
(7) the song is not so much sung as 'rhythmically narrated' in a sexy husky voice (not rap, rather more like the sort of comic monologue you sometimes get in stage musicals; in fact, not too dissimilar from Meri Wilson's The Telephone Man).
(8) there is a wonderful sound effect of a ruler twanged against a desk (I think it's meant to sound like creaking bedsprings)
(9) various rude words are replaced with gasps and sound effects. The B side of the single (in the UK at least) was an uncensored version of the A side.

Please does anyone have any idea? Trying to identify this song has driven me nuts for 20 years.

 

[David Lawson]

Sue Wilkinson - "You've Gotta Be A Hustler If You Wanna Get On"

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/so...nnageton.shtml

 

[andrew markworthy]

David, you are the man.

Many thanks.

Now all I have to do is find a copy.

 

[David Lawson]

I don't think I've even heard the song before. I'm always up for trying to hunt down music when armed with only a few lyric snippets, though. AltaVista found it on an Amy Grant message board, of all places.

I'm going to clear Internet Explorer's history now...

 

[andrew markworthy]

It is a pretty obscure song, very much of its time. Reading the lyrics it does sound rather a tawdry little ditty. Trust me, with the sound effects it does sound rather more appealing.

 

[Jeannette Walsh]

I have an mp3 of this song.

 

[Ted Lee]

that has to be ... hands-down ... the most detailed description of a seeked song i've ever read here.

most of them read like, "i heard this song, it starts with some guitars, and it's kinda old. can someone tell me what it is?"

 

[Rhett_Y]

ROFLMAO...isn't that the truth..........

R~

 

[David Broome]

"son can you play me a memory?
But i'm not really sure how it goes,
It's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete
When i wore a younger man's clothes."

Billy Joel