Freight Elevator

Up until after World War Two, black and white musicians in the USA could perform on stage together, but often weren't allowed to stay in the same hotel. This song tells a true story about the Jazz singer Billie Holiday, who appeared night after night in the Artie Shaw orchestra on 52nd Street, the centre of New York's nightlife. There she enchanted the public with her voice - like velvet stretched over barbed wire. The crowd is so big, that they've had to hire extra waiting staff. But Billie Holiday wasn't allowed to use the main elevator which the other guests and performers used. Instead the hotel management forced her to use the freight elevator at the back of the building - just because she was black! The freight elevator, crammed in between fresh sheets, a case of grapefruit juice in tins, and the shoes that a guest from Denver has left in front of his door. For the liftboy the freight elevator isn't such a bad workplace, he can ride up and down to his heart's content and bawl out the bellboy, who's under him, because he's dirtied the newspaper with the racing news.