I wrote “Shop Girl” as part of song-writing workshop that I did with Matt Meighan. We were supposed to write about our first job. When I was 13, I worked in a small antique store, tucked away in a courtyard shopping area, off the beaten path from most of the tourist traffic in Georgetown, Colorado. It was a dark and dusty little store that smelled like old things. My job was mostly pretty boring, consisting of dusting furniture, and organizing shelves. As the store didn’t get a lot of foot traffic, my boss often left me in charge from opening to closing. She would drop in a couple of times during the day to check in on things. I entertained myself by looking through the card files to read about the provenance of the goods. When customers would come in, I would tell them all that I knew about the piece they were interested in, and sometimes I would embellish on the story a bit. Not sure that it ever helped to make a sale, but I found it amusing.
This song is a bit longer than most of my songs because it has a spoken word intro. I had been listening to some singer songwriters out of Texas who used this technique, and decided to give it a whirl. I hope you like it.
Anne Page McClard · Georgetown (Shop Girl)
Shop Girl Lyrics
When I was a young girl
I lived in a little town in Colorado
Nestled in a steep valley
Near the continental divide
Called Georgetown
500 living souls
Many more dead ones
Altitude,8,500 feet
Georgetown Was full of little Gingerbread houses
With white picket fences
Each with its own historic plaque—
And on each plaque was the name of a dead person
Few of the living
Could claim to be from there,
Kneissels, Anderssens, Buckleys
The rest of us were escapees from real life,
Lost souls (mostly with Ph.Ds), There were also,Trust Funders, Germans,
Swedes, Ski bums and shopkeepers…
Lots of shopkeepers.
In its day Georgetown was known as
the Silver Queen of the Rockies
But in my time
The only thing mined there
Were the pockets of tourists…
City Slickers
up from Denver,
or worse, in my mind,
Texans, rich Texans
And I? I was a 13 year-old Shop Girl.
She gets to work at half-past nine
Tidy’s the goods in the case
Wipes the glass to make it shine
Checks her reflection, hair and face
Opens the door at ten-o’clock sharp
Counts the money in the drawer
Sees her mark a-coming from afar
Now he’s walking through the door
Where columbines grow
And the air smells of pine
Shop girl is workin’ overtime
Sellin’ fools gold to whoever is buyin’
Shop girl is getting good at selling’ and lying
The man walks in at half-past ten
Wearing a Stetson,n’ boots to match
She dons a smile and welcomes him in
Texan she’d guess, a mighty fine catch
Antique collector up from Fort Worth
Shows him a chest, tells a tall tale
Telling stories is part of her work
Spinning yarns just to make a sale
[CHORUS]
Late in the day, the sun’s going down
Shop girl sorts and rolls the change
Boss comes in with her usual frown
She collects her money to take to the bank
She tells the girl “you did good honey”
Gives her a pat, heads out the door
Time to go home, made a little money
Shop Girl had hoped for something more
[CHORUS]
