The very worst and the very best thing about Cinderella Night Songs is the front cover.
On the one hand the band have a kick ass logo* and I cannot think of a cover that better illustrates the glam rock look**, especially Eric Brittingham’s hair that just did things that no other human’s hair did 34 years ago.
On the other hand, well. At least two of the band are standing like they’ve just followed through in their spandex (Hi Fred and Jeff!), Tom appears to only have a right leg and Eric … sorry, I can’t see past that lovely, lustrous hair.
MORE IMPORTANTLY the band’s silky, swishy, satin-n-tat glam image just does not reflect the excellent music within. Night Songs is a hard-edged proper rock LP, when my mates and I stumbled across it when it came out there was debate as to whether Cinderella were better than AC/DC – we hadn’t seen the cover back then to sway us either way.
Opening, as all the best LPs ever in the whole wide world ever do, with eerie wind noises and the chime of a forlorn bell, Night Songs heads out heavy and unhurried with the title track. I love the pace of this one, Tom Keifer rasping out those wage slave blues like it matters; proper man rock.
Workin’ this job ain’t payin’ the bills
Sick and tired rat race takin’ my thrills
Kickin’ down a road, not a dollar in my pocket
Night time falls and I’m ready to rock it
Next up we get a great little duo, ‘Shake Me’ and ‘Nobody’s Fool’. The former is a spritely boast about shaggin’^ prowess (‘She wrapped her love around me all night long/
In the mornin’ we were still goin’ strong’^^), fittingly belted out rather potently by the band. The latter is one of my very favourite things on earth, a good bitter ballad – not that I had ever been double-crossed by a mean mistreatin’ woman in 1986, but I was sonically ready for it given half a chance^*
BUT what unites these songs for ever is that-most-80’s-rock-thing, the interlinked video. Oh yes, media studies fans, time for 1537 to cut loose.
First up ‘Shake Me’, where the band borrow a storyline from a fairy tale, the title of which eludes me:
Observations: the Cinders chick really needs to work on her decidedly lacklustre broom technique; her sexy rock attire is actually slightly less feminine than anything the chaps in the band are wearing; her necklace/choker thing looks alarmingly surgical; Cinderella’s playing appears to be entirely made up of flourishes, nothing but; Eric’s lovely, lovely hair.
Second up, ‘Nobody’s Fool’.
Observations: one ugly sisters’ bongos have grown alarmingly in the period since the last video; Cinders has changed into a jaw-droppingly impractical outfit in the limo with the band (somebody needs to tell her, tactfully, that that skirt has shrunk a little in the wash); Eric has lovely hair and a dodgy taste in blouses; worried that her clothes may revert to fitting her properly at midnight Cinders runs away from the band; her outfit palpably does not provide the type of support that a jogging lady needs.
At risk of overstaying my welcome, I’ll sum up the remainder of Night Songs highlights in my decidedly lop-sided review.
Night Songs is chock full of great tough rockers like … every single track on the LP! Seriously, unlike almost any LP from the same time frame there isn’t a single weak track. Particular faves =
- Hell On Wheels – sounds like, umm, hell on wheels. True story.
- Somebody Save Me – nice and cynical.
- Once Around The Ride – the title may be a sex, rather than a fun fair reference.
- Back Home Again – a great closing track, really rocks out hard.
Best of all though is ‘Push Push’. Now ladies and gentlemen as this was a song that directly led me to lose that which once lost cannot be then found again*^. True story. Due to severely arrested development on my part this is still what sex sounds like to 48 year-old me. Just look at the lyrics, it is my generations’ ‘Let It Be’, ‘What’s Going On’, ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town’ and ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ all smeared across a backseat:
I need a little Push, Push Gonna give a little, Push, Push If ya take a little, Push, Push Then you'll get a little, Push, Push
Night Songs is great, a really solid rock LP. For my money, way better than the wintery sales wonderland that Cinderella were to hit later on. I’d have given my left one to have seen them at this point, although preferably after Fred Coury had leaned all the drum parts that Jody Cortez had laid down on the actual LP and ditto after Jeff LaBar, who I think was a really good guitarist, had learned the bits that Barry Bennedetta recorded.
I have so enjoyed revisiting these shores again. I know this is a triple platinum LP but everyone should be playing Night Songs all the Goddamned time and it should never be forgotten.
1017 Down.
PS: there is also a link in with the ‘ugly’ sisters (I prefer ‘appallingly 80’s‘ to the U word) in the video to ‘Somebody Save Me’ featuring Cinderellamentor and backing vocalist JBJ in a small cameo:
*which I could still carve into a school desk in 5 seconds flat entirely from memory.
**Look What The Cat Dragged In doesn’t count, because … drag.
^Cinderella do not seem to have been fans of the letter g on verbs. It was a late 80’s thing. Bitchin’.
^^Good on you Tom, personally my back just isn’t up to it anymore.
^*’Nobody’s Fool’ is up there with Leppard’s ‘Too Late For Love’, but not in the same league as Junkyard’s ‘Clean The Dirt’. Trust me, Cinderella were nicer guys than that.
*^virginity, doofus! The exact circumstances will understandably remain shrouded in mystery to avoid the lady in question being besieged by tabloid reporters, news copters and suchlike. Sorry Tracy.
