Stella Hurt
Costello, Elvis
Momofuku (2008)

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 graceful
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 she 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 and money
For Old Glory
Her voice was shot beyond repair
But that 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 a needle drags her through the static

Don’t bring me down
I’m trouble bound
Blue song
Red Alert
Who made Stella Hurt?