Music of my middle age: Cinderella (trying not to scream)

I grew up on Doug and the Slugs (Doug on Wikipedia). Along with a few other bands and songs that will be featured here, one of my swim coaches loved this band and played their cassette tapes repeatedly while we swam.  I am certain to feature more Doug and the Slugs songs here but this one is interesting because it is relatively recent (he died in 2004) and I think only exists on Youtube.

I have discussed this song before, focusing on the interesting choice of detail; the only concrete detail is green walls. A very quick Google search shows the phrase he used describing schools, maternity hospitals and spas.

We further know she lives alone and she has no place to go. The rest are merely evocative language and cliche. Let me pick out a few cliches:

• Down in flames
• Streets paved with gold
• Half-full glass

Elsewhere are everyday icons, used by everyone and nearly cliches themselves:

• Cinderella
• broken mirror
• broken heart
• heart of stone

Bennett puts them together well and makes his own kind of tragic love song from them. I don't know if Bennett made any other kind of love song. One of my favorites that made it onto an album is Tropical Rainstorm.

Some questions: "Shattered dreams like Napoleon Bonaparte". I have listened to the line a few times and wonder if he uses the ending to a joke, "Blownaparte". Bonaparte's dreams were indeed shattered but not in a love song kind of way. I hope there is more to the choice than a rhyme with 'heart'.

Cinderella Trying not to Scream.

When we first met, there was a sound of music and the streets were all paved with gold.

Then fact and fiction began to collide and the love letters all turned cold.

One of us in denial, the other down in flames.

But who got busted, who gets dusted, it's the same old game.

She sits in the window of a haunted house where the walls are all painted green.

Cinderella, trying not to scream.

When you live a love without any glory, its a love you live in vain.

With so many lies and so many stories we live in a spiral of shame.

One of us a broken mirror, the other a broken heart.

Shattered dreams like Napoleon Bonaparte.

She sits in a window of a haunted house where the walls are all painted green.

Cinderella, trying not to scream.

She lives alone with her own expectations and the spaces in between. Cinderella trying not to scream.

All those lonely days and lonely nights that she slowly walks us home.

No one knows  she has nowhere to go and no one to call. No one to call.

When we first met, there was a sound of music and the streets were all paved with gold.

 Then truth and religion began to collide and the love letters all turned cold.

Some say the glass is half empty.  And others say half-full.  But she thinks the glass is pointless. I guess she always will.

She sits in a window of a haunted house where the walls are all painted green.

Cindrella, trying not to scream.

She lives alone with a heart of stone. Its the saddest thing I've ever seen.

Cinderella trying not to scream. X4