"Cinderella" is a song written by Reed Nielsen, and recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

artist

Vince Gill Vincent Grant Gill (born April 12, 1957) is an American country music singer, songwriter and musician. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman of the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s and as a solo artist b ...

. It was released in March 1987 as the first single from the album ''

The Way Back Home ''The Way Back Home'' is the second studio album by American country music artist Vince Gill. It was released in 1987 by RCA Nashville and it produced four chart singles on the '' Billboard'' country charts. In order of release, these were "Cin ...

''. The song reached #5 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot Country Singles & Tracks Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart.

Content

"Cinderella" is about a male narrator having a conversation with a friend whom he thinks is forcing his girlfriend into a subservient role which the narrator compares to Cinderella. The narrator threatens to "take the girl and treat her like a real person if the friend doesn't change his ways." Gill plays

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

and

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

on the track, which led him to compare the song to

bluegrass music Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ...

mixed with

New Wave music New wave is a loosely defined music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s. It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself. La ...

, as well as "a cross between Bill Monroe and

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

Chart performance

References

Songs based on Cinderella 1987 singles 1987 songs Vince Gill songs RCA Records Nashville singles Song recordings produced by Richard Landis Songs written by Reed Nielsen {{1987-country-song-stub