Stella Hurt - Elvis Costello, The Imposters

You should wear your red galoshes

Walking o’er the city pride

Streets are paved with heaven’s pennies

Gutters full of suicides

Teddy steadily fell from grace

Somewhere near Arcadia

Once she overheard a voice

That she didn’t hear on the radio

Velvet gloves and country clubs

Were never going to hold her

Ringing the necks of silly southern belles

Who wanted to scold her

Don’t bring me down

I’m trouble bound

Blue song, red alert

Who made Stella hurt?

Teddy soon dropped out of sight

Turned up in another town

Changed her name for the spotlight

Singing like a blue bird in a sequin gown

She finally fell and married well

But I knew it wouldn’t last

Reversing back into the limelight

No one ever saw her even half plastered

Don’t bring me down

I’m trouble bound

Blue song, red alert

Who made Stella hurt?

Then she saw those soldier boys

Throw their bonnets in the air

Self-made men would pledge their fortunes

And dream of her and dream of her

Generals in the commissary

Opened up a case of wine

Checked the perfume of the cork

Said, «Made in 1929»

They used her up, to raise morale

For money and Old Glory

Her voice was shot beyond repair

But this is not the last act of this story

The night is black as cracked shellac

Abandoned in an attic

Stella is silent as the grave

Until the needle drags her through the static

Don’t bring me down

I’m trouble bound

Blue song, red alert

Who made Stella hurt?