THE VIDEO Cinderella, "Nobody's Fool," Night Songs, 1986, Mercury
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SAMPLE LYRIC "I screeeeeeam my heart out / just to make a dime / and with that dime I buy your love / but nowww Iiiiiiiii've changed myyyyyyyyyyy miiiiiiiiiinnnnnddd / I'm not your foooooooooooooooooooooool"
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION This video opens with the two model-types who I'll call the Wicked Stepsisters. They appear as recurring characters in the videos from Night Songs, even though this is the only video that is actually a Cinderella story of sorts. I know, I know, this is the kind of thing I should know about backwards and forwards, but I don't. I'll look into it, I promise.
In any event, the Wicked Stepsisters take a very jiggly run through the night to their frickin' adorable polka-dot car, screaming and making my dog wake up every time they are nearly hit by oncoming traffic. Hopping in, they struggle out of their sunglasses, red tops, and black and white polka dot miniskirts (an outfit god knows I would have found enviable in the 80s or, you know, slightly more recently), and into red elbow-length gloves; tube tops with sparkly wraps; black tulle petticoats beneath black and white polka dot skirts (accented with red garters beneath!), earrings with giant, dangly dice; and enormous sun-hats made to resemble clocks. They crank up "Shake Me," and it's off to follow Cinderella's limo to the video shoot.
We catch up with the band just as they're arriving at the shoot, and we find that they're not alone -- Tom Keifer's got a comely young lass on his arm. Though she's no dresser compared to the Wicked Stepsisters (a sort of black crop top over something brown and lacy, a see-through black miniskirt, black lace gloves, a chain belt, and black thigh-high stockings with visible garters), her softer hair and makeup show that this is the girl we're supposed to be empathizing with, no matter how much we want the other girls' car. So in this video, at least, she's Cinderella. But since the band is Cinderella, too, we'll call the girl Cindy. Anyway, Tom gives her a choice seat beside the stage while the Sisters file in the back.
Cinderella take the stage, which features some kind of sandy floor as well as a sunset-like backdrop in yellow, orange, and pink that really shows off Tom and Eric's carwash-strip frock coats to excellent effect. Something black snows down from the ceiling as Tom does his best to use a badass heavy metal version of sign language to illustrate the lyrics. Everyone's tossing their hair and pouting, and it's really frickin' awesome, the Sisters are getting down, but Cindy keeps watching the clock. Before we're even all the way through the chorus, she's up and outta there!
Cindy's running home while Cinderella keeps rocking. She curls up on her bed, giving me a break from describing what's going on with her to describe how much I l-o-v-e Tom Keifer's voice. On lines like "I scccrrrrrreaammm my hearrrrt out," we can really enjoy the whole like, high-pitched growl thing that this man has just absolutely perfected. I would probably like Cinderella songs no matter what (they're just good songs), but Keifer's distinctive voice just adds so much that I can't really imagine them without it.
During the guitar solo that follows, we see Cindy getting up from her bed in slo-mo. She grabs the bedposts at the foot of the bed and is engulfed in weird blue light, then she sort of turns into stars. All to change from her rocker babe outfit into her nightgown! Nightie-clad, she heads back out the door, running down the street to join what is now a massive crowd of people outside of the studio. As the band heads to their limo, we see the Sisters getting the car door slammed right in front of them (burned!).
It appears that the entire band has gotten back into the limo, but then we see Tom Keifer pausing to sign an autograph for a fan. It's Cindy! But is he like, "Hey baby, you're back! Come on and get in the limo!" No, they just sort of share a meaningful look.
THE VERDICT Let's get this out of the way: I love this song. I'm obsessed with this song. I have a recurring fantasy (something I think about while I'm on the subway and I'm really not wanting to go to work) where I audition for a band by singing this song, and I kick so much ass that they hire me immediately, and then like, we play mad clubs doing amazing 80s metal cover shows. But enough about me, on to the video.
I've always found this video kind of weird because it's like, okay, it's like a Cinderella story but not. She's already all tarted up and with the guy when the video starts, but otherwise it sort of follows the fairytale. You know, midnight, has to leave, changes back, etc., etc. But when she leaves, Tom Keifer totally doesn't care -- there's no glass slipper or anything, and he doesn't even notice when she gets up. And he doesn't have to search for her, she just shows up again! And when she does, he's not like, "You're the one, come away with me." He kind of smiles at her like, "Hey, it's that chick again." So it doesn't really fit.
But then, as I was just watching and writing this now, I thought to myself, "Whoa, dumbass!" Okay, the latter half of the video obviously takes a literal interpretation of the Cinderella story (where the fairytale ends with like, wow, maybe you'll be able to get two seconds of Tom Keifer's time and an autograph even though you were like, totally hanging out before), but maybe, maybe either a) there is another Night Songs video I don't know about (hard to believe, but maybe) that tells the first half of the story? Where we actually see Cindy and the Wicked Stepsisters interacting, where we see Cindy become transformed into a babe, and where we find out how the hell she got hooked up with Tom Keifer in the first place.
It makes more sense that this is an entire other video, and not just exposition missing from this video, since this video already starts with some amount of exposition. Or maybe we are just supposed to accept the fractured fairytale we see in the video for what it is? Either way, I feel I've asked more questions than I answered here, so I'm on the case. I'm getting to the bottom of this.