Home Naked Music Monday Stripper Music Monday: Sarah Katherine Lewis’ Top Five “Fuck You” Songs

Stripper Music Monday: Sarah Katherine Lewis’ Top Five “Fuck You” Songs

By
Sarah Katherine Lewis
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Any stripper worth her tear-away schoolgirl skirt can stage-dance to “(She’s) Sexy + 17” by the Stray Cats and make a few bucks. It’s not hard: the music is an irresistible anthem to statutory rape. If your audience is full of dudes in Ed Hardy shirts with brand new tattoos (or if you’re working in Portland, Ore., which may be redundant), toss it on and vacuum up the money with my blessings.* It doesn’t matter how old you are, because it’s not about you—it’s about your customers’ fond memories of hot high school girls they wished they’d fucked 20 years ago. Spin to win, Dancing Queen (and if the stage-lighting’s bad, slap a little Dermablend on that C-section scar before you go up).

There are certain hero tracks that nearly any stripper can make money to.  You’ve probably got a go-to list of your own. “Closer,” by Nine Inch Nails, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by The Revolting Cocks, that annoying singing monks song by Enigma, anything by Portishead or Sade—they work because they work, and if you’re there to make money, those classic tracks are your friends. I’m not here to cast aspersions on “Erotic City” (Prince) or “Fade Into You” (Mazzy Star). I’ve danced to them on many occasions myself. They’re decent moneymakers and most DJs have them at their fingertips in case you’ve shown up to your shift late without your CD. These songs are a stripper’s meat and potatoes.

But sometimes the house just hates you no matter what you’re dancing to. Maybe it’s your look: in a houseful of tiny blondes, you’re a chubby brunette. Or maybe you’re a woman of color, or an older dancer, or heavily tattooed, or maybe you just aren’t good at extinguishing that spark of intelligence in your eyes that’s anathema to customers who need to feel a sense of intellectual superiority in order to get their dicks hard. In any case you’re not what they’re looking for, and they’re determined to punish you for failing to meet their needs as consumers.

In those circumstances, it’s best to consider yourself a performance artist and to measure your success in customer outrage, not in folded dollar bills. A hostile crowd of non-tippers can be intimidating, but you can’t let them win. If your goal is to flip the bird to a contemptuous audience, look no further than the following list of my top five fuck-you songs.

1. “Crazy Train,” by Ozzy Osbourne.  Dancing on Bourbon Street is like flipping through an issue of “Playboy”—you’ve never seen so many tiny, tanned blondes in one place, and the customer service is delivered without a shred of irony. At the Sho-Bar, I shared the stage with women literally half my size who flitted up and down the pole like pretty little wood-sprites. While some customers loved me, occasionally the house would skew toward drunk 20-something frat boys, a demographic not noted for their appreciation of my kind of beauty.

When I was in a particularly sour mood, I’d pull out “Crazy Train.” Instead of dancing, I did frantic calisthenics—push-ups, jumping jacks, lunges, and crunches. I ran in place then turned around to squeeze my butt cheeks together in time with the music. I’d exercise ’til I panted, often running off stage, waiting for the next chorus, then running back on triumphantly with my arms raised, “Chariots of Fire”-style. One night I even took to the floor and did the running-in-a-circle thing like Curly from the Three Stooges.

2.  “The HIV Song,” by Ween.  Most strip club customers don’t like to be reminded about sexually transmitted disease, especially by a song that sounds like fucked-up carnival music.

3. “Jawohl Asshole,” by Life, Sex & Death.  It’s hard to goose-step in seven-inch heels, but sometimes you just gotta. Sieg heiling has never been so sexy! “How many times did you receive punishment, but commit no crime?” stutters caterwauling lead-singer Stanley. Best to freeze while pointing at the audience accusingly during this line. HOW MANY TIMES INDEED, SIRS.

4.  “Theme from Star Wars:  Imperial March, ” composed by John Williams.  The cool thing about this is that after getting ice thrown at me onstage by a group of dudes in Metairie who didn’t cotton to my sense of dramatic spectacle, I did six private dances in a row for a rabid Star Wars fan who thought I was hotter than Leia in her metal bikini. Usually, though, this track’s just a good one for looming around and kicking over people’s drinks.

5.  “Home Sweet Home,” by Motley Crue.  You know those little China Doll wigs that everyone was wearing for a while? Were you aware that if you turn the wig around backwards so the short part sits right over your forehead, the wig turns into a pretty convincing mullet? It’s true. Business in front, party in the rear, dudes! I like to bring a lighter for the piano outro—if I can make it onstage til the outro. Also, please note: a chick doing air-guitar is like a million boots stomping on a million boners at once.

If you’re not making money, you should at least be having fun. And what’s more fun that torturing the unappreciative mooks that should be ejaculating 20 dollar bills all over themselves just for the privilege of seeing your hot ass in a thong? If they don’t appreciate your hard work, at the very least they can amuse you. Revenge = priceless.

* See also pretty much any track by Billy Idol, who also seems to have a lot to say about underage lovin’.

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Sarah Katherine Lewis
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Sarah Katherine Lewis is a freelance writer/editor living in Los Angeles. Her books include Indecent: How I Make It And Fake It As A Girl For Hire and Sex & Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad For Me. Friend her on Facebook for more info, news and assorted shenanigans. Read a current interview with Sarah Katherine Lewis here.

49 COMMENTS

  1. God this post just made me so happy. There have been a ot of slow nights lately and I have been enjoying a good ole “fuck you” onstage. Glad to see its so heavily supported!

  2. I love this. I’m trying to think of my personal “Fuck You” songs. One time I danced to Amebix to get a group of people to leave. They cleared out and and I felt like it was Kat 1, drunk douches and their girlfriends 0.

  3. I have eclectic taste in music & when my inner hater rears her ugly head at cheap ass people I gift them with these precious Gems of sound.
    1. Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution will not be televised” I’m black & this song is all about black power. Yeah motherfuckers!
    2. TSOL’s “Code Blue” I love this band & this song is perfect for getting that disgusted look on someone’s face. Or lustful….Nasty.
    3. G.G Allin’s “Abuse myself I wanna die” Anything by G.G will get you paid or scare the shit out of people so much they’ll stay away from you all night.
    Enjoy!

  5. Anything by Wesley WIllis.

    I’ll never forget the look of everyone’s faces as I laughed hysterically to “Cut the Mullet”, on my birthday shift last year.

    (12 Jager shots deep, also)

    Fuck it, I’d do it sober too.

  6. Down in Eugene we used to play this when cheap assholes filled up the club: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXi8WmQ_WM

    It got to the point where every girl working (that’s 15+ on weekends) would be singing along, the girl on stage would be doing the dance, and every customer would have a stupid “I don’t understand” expression.

    Priceless.

    • Thanks…now I’m going to my straight office job with this on perma-rotation in my head.

      Do you know who first played this song for me? MY MOM. I’m totally not even kidding.

      xoxo

    • OMG I love rocking this song out. The guys at my club have NO sense of humor, but for some reason it does make them tip. I think it’s just the word genitals being repeated over and over. 😀

    • AIMEE,
      JUST FOUND THIS SITE AND THERE YOU WERE…EUGENE OREGON
      WHERE I GOT MY START IN BURLESQUE IN 1975…PROBABLY BEFORE YOU WERE BORN!BUT HAPPY TO KNOW EUGENE DANCERS ARE STILL STRONG AND SMART!!BEST OF EVERYTHING TO YOU AND THE GIRLS OF EUGENE
      MS JUDITH STEIN
      CANADA,S LEGEND OF BURLESQUE
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  12. God, I wish there was some equally cocky way for escorts to get back at jerk-off clients. I mean, aside from calling them and leaving three minutes of Jon LaJoie on their voicemail.

  14. My favorite part of this post is you running in place and then turning around and squeezing your butt cheeks in time with the music. This is some of the funniest shit I’ve ever read. I have done the frantic calisthenics angle. They never see it coming and sometimes it may hit some sort of 80’s Jane Fonda kink nerve.

    • One of the particular ways sex workers fight back against asshole customers, I’ve found, is by giving them WAY, WAY TOO MUCH of what they’re asking for. So as the only fat girl in a club full of skinny women, I often had to contend with the whole “you’re not hot because you’re too fat” thing.

      The aerobics came out of my response: So okay, you’re not into me cause I’m too big? Wait, wait! See! I’m losing weight for you! I’m really trying! See, I’m doing jumping jacks! etc.

      I liked taking their negative judgment and attempting to “fix” it by frantic exercise, all played out onstage where they were forced to watch the results.

      xoxoxoxox

  17. One of the best Music Mondays yet!

    “Short Dick Man” is reserved at the home club for bachelor/birthday sacrifices, which is almost too bad.

    A coworker used to just break out all of the cheesiest N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees she could find when people were being cheap. Finding the lamest music ever doesn’t hurt the cause, either. Many times, the girl that always followed her would do the same. It’s a good way to weed out the 18-35 year olds.

    One club I used to work for plays Dorrough’s “Get Big” when the crowd is cheap. It always made me laugh. I enjoy listening to it–and, admittedly, belting out the lyrics myself within earshot of as many customers as I can–on a shitty night.

  21. Girl you are too funny, when I used to dance I would I had about three disc worth of songs to de-bonner a cheap-ass crowd. Needless to say I totally know where you are coming from.

  23. When I danced at Hustler Barely Legal in NOLA in the early oughts, the DJ used to announce going home time by playing Karen Finley’s “Yam Jam.” (The lyrics don’t start til :41 on this YouTube of it.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-pR75GLZzw

    Also, fwiw, I started at Sho Bar in 2002/3 and my experience was totally the opposite. It was a crappy club full of sort of misfit-toy dancers – lots of bigger girls, heavy tattoos, scars etc and we had to pick our music off a jukebox in the dressing room that was stocked by weird dancers with eclectic taste. I played a lot of Cheap Trick and Nick Cave. No idea what it’s like since Katrina, though – Sho Bar is now called Stilettos and the whole street, which used to be indie, creepy and weird is overrun by Hustler/Rick’s/Deja Vu/Scores properties.

  24. GIA–I worked at the Sho Bar the same year/s you did. I was a chubby blonde girl, heavily tattooed, dancing under the name of Rose. Did you know me???

    Oh how I miss the old, weird Sho Bar. I worked at Barely Legal for a few months but totally hated it–now I’m in Los Angeles, missing New Orleans every minute of every day.

    xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

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