The tale is as American as they come: a family, ravaged by the throes of poverty, has no moves left, so they turn to desperate measures. A mother buys her child a satin dancin’ dress, hands them a heart-shaped locket, and sends them out into a world of prostitution. The story features a malnourished baby. An ominous cockroach. A benevolent Georgia man with mad liquid assets. This rich fabric is better known as the 1969 Bobbie Gentry hit, “Fancy.” So why are we discussing the greatest socioeconomic-driven, sex work anthem of our time? Because it's the song of the summer.
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Over the past few strange months, "Fancy" keeps making powerful appearances in the 2020 cultural conversation. This summer, Reba McEntire announced she'd be releasing a 30th anniversary edition of Rumor Has It—an album that included her massively successful cover of "Fancy." In July, Kennedy Davenport lip synched the track on Drag Race. And on Friday, Orville Peck included his own, gender-twisted version of the song on his new EP, Show Pony. Peck's version is a take on the track that we've never heard in its 50-year history. "Fancy" has emerged as song of the summer because the tension and forlornness of this year taps into the Southern Gothic—the darkness, the desperation, the gloom—creating a song that manages to be both timeless and undeniably fitting for this bizarre season.
When it was first recorded in 1969, "Fancy" was a radical song for any genre—especially for a country song sung by a woman. "'Fancy' is my strongest statement for women’s lib, if you really listen to it," Gentry said in a 1974 interview with After Dark. "I agree wholeheartedly with that movement and all the serious issues that they stand for–equality, equal pay, day care centers, and abortion rights." It pushed against the conservatism of country radio and became country feminist canon, paving the way for other radical songs like Loretta Lynn's 1975 "The Pill" and Dolly Parton's "Daddy, Come and Get Me."
In 1990, McEntire dusted the song off, reviving its revolutionary message for a new generation. "Fancy" became one of the singer's biggest hits. It, too, seemed to be a part of a wave of statement songs to follow in the genre. McEntire's early '90s catalog alone tackled a whole slew of social issues from AIDS to women working outside the home. And "Fancy" fit in with themes of systematic marginalization of groups, of sacrifice, of empowerment to overcome the hand you've been dealt. Thirty years later, the song is still as relevant as ever.
That undertone is what makes Peck's doom-filled, reimagined take on “Fancy” so powerful in a year that has seen a civil rights movement, a recession, and a government that has allowed a pandemic to ravage the country's most vulnerable populations. As summer crescendos into August, Peck's take on the song is about the transformation from a boy in dire circumstances to a woman of the night. Peck infuses eerie production value, letting occasional drums and bells ominously fill the moments surrounding his deep vocals.
Peck has taken this song, so definitive and controversial on its own, and reframed it as a modern tale of desperation, fetishization, and darkness—but through the lens of queerness. It's an angle that Gentry likely didn't consider with her original release, but one that adapts seamlessly to the narrative. Men have covered “Fancy,” but not through the perspective that Peck has captured in his version. This one subverts gender and nods to this complex reworking of the story. With the same conviction as Gentry and McEntire brought to their iconic recordings, Peck manages to do exactly what "Fancy" was meant to do: pique an interest and make you a bit uncomfortable.
In this hot, slow summer, the sweeping story of "Fancy" seems fitting: urgent and gritty and the opposite of what a summer song should be amid a summer that admittedly doesn't feel very summery. Peck's version may be the shiniest new recording, but Gentry and McEntire's takes still hit as hard. That's because there will always be a bit of subversive power to the story of "Fancy," no matter what form she takes. The story of a downtrodden character in poverty doing whatever it takes to break free catches our attention so easily because it’s hard to imagine a world where that character doesn't exist. It just so happens that this time, it’s a deep-voiced, fringe masked man in the velvet-trimmed dress.
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