[Verse 1]
You should wear your red galoshes
Walking over the city pride
Streets are paved with heaven's pennies
Gutters full of suicides

[Verse 2]
Teddy steadily fell from grace
Somewhere near Arcadia
Once she overheard a voice
She didn't hear on the radio

[Verse 3]
Velvet gloves and country clubs
Were never going to hold her
Ringing the necks of silly southern belles
Who wanted to scold her

[Chorus]
Don't bring me down
I'm trouble bound
Blue song, red alert
Who made Stella hurt?

[Verse 4]
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
[Verse 5]
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

[Chorus]
Don't bring me down
I'm trouble bound
Blue song, red alert
Who made Stella hurt?

[Bridge]
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

[Instrumental Break]

[Verse 6]
Generals in the commissary
Opened up a case of wine
Checked the perfume of the cork
Said "Made in 1929"
[Verse 7]
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

[Verse 8]
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

[Chorus]
Don't bring me down
I'm trouble bound
Blue song, red alert
Who made Stella hurt?