HOWARD DIETZ -- HIS LIFE AND LYRICS

HOWARD DIETZ
(1896 - 1983)
LIFE AND LYRICS

HOWARD DIETZ was born in New York City in 1896 and went to the same high school as the GERSHWINS and was a friend of fellow future Broadway lyricists LORENZ HART and OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II at Columbia University where Dietz studied journalism.

DIETZ was was already writing lyrics for Broadway shows in the 1920s when he went to work as a PUBLICIST for the movie studio that would become MGM.  He is credited with originating both the ROARING LEO THE LION symbol for the studio (the Lion just happened to be the symbol of Dietz’ aforementioned alma mater Columbia University) and MGM’s Latin motto ARS GRATIA ARTIS (Art for Art’s Sake).

Later as MGM Vice President for Public Relations, he presided over the studio’s many publicity campaigns and lavish premieres, including the one for Gone With the Wind in Atlanta in 1939. 


Howard Dietz with actress Ann Rutherford at the
1939 premiere of Gone With the Wind in Atlanta

Consequently, DIETZ ended up enjoying a dual professional life as a MOTION PICTURE EXECUTIVE and as a BROADWAY LYRICIST AND LIBRETTIST (and even translated European operas for the Met).  He continued in these multi-professional-roles for the next 30 years until he retired from MGM in the late 1950s and wrote the lyrics for his last Broadway shows (Jennie and The Gay Life) in the next half decade.  Dietz was hailed as “a renaissance man for all media" by showbiz publication Variety in his 1983 obit.




Most of DIETZ work as a LYRICIST was with

Composer ARTHUR SCHWARTZ (1900 - 1984)

and the names DIETZ & SCHWARTZ became famous throughout the 1930s for songs of interesting and unusual lyrics combined with sensitive and melodious music. 



DIETZ and SCHWARTZ most celebrated songs come from musical revues rather than book musicals, although they wrote songs for both. 

They first collaborated in 1929 on a musical revue entitled The Little Show that included their first hit song --

"I GUESS I’LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN”

It was a TORCH SONG which was softly melodious in musical tone and with lyrics WISTFUL but  CONVERSATIONAL and WITTY at the same time --


"I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN"
From The Little Show (revue) (1929)
LYRICS BY HOWARD DIETZ
(Music by Arthur Schwartz)

    (Verse)
  1  I beheld her and was conquered at the start
  2  And placed her on a pedestal apart.
  3  I planned the little hideaway 
  4  That we would share some day.
  5  When I met her I unfolded all my dream
  6  And told her how she'd fit into my scheme
  7  Of what bliss is. 
  8  Then the blow came
  9  When she gave her name
10  As "Missus."

    (Refrain 1)
  1  I guess I'll have to change my plan.
  2  I should have realized there'd be another man!
  3  I overlooked that point completely
  4  Until the big affair began.
  5  Before I knew where I was at
  6  I found myself upon the shelf
  7  And that was that.
  8  I tried to reach the moon,
  9  But when I got there,
10  All that I could get was the air.
11  My feet are back upon the ground.
12  I've lost the one girl I found.

    (Refrain 2)
  1  I guess I'll have to change my plan.
  2  I should have realized there'd be another man!
  3  [Why did I buy those blue pajamas]
  4  Before the big affair began.
  5  My boiling point is much too low
  6  For me to try to be a fly
  7  Lothario!
  8  [I think I'll crawl right back
  9  [And into my shell,]
10  [Dwelling in my personal Hell]
11  [I'll have to change my plan around]
12  I lost the one girl I found.





DIETZ & SCHWARTZ most famous Broadway MUSICAL REVUE was called

THE BAND WAGON (1931)

 and many consider it the BEST BROADWAY MUSICAL REVUE of all time.

It was the last Broadway show dancers FRED ASTAIRE and his sister ADELE did before ADELE got married and retired and FRED went to Hollywood (and we know what happened after that). 

FRED ASTAIRE would later star in the 1953 movie version of The Bandwagon (that was not a revue but became a musical feature film with a fictional backstage story that included songs from other Dietz and Schwartz musicals as well). 


One of the hit songs from the stage version of The Band Wagon was a bright and simple little song whose lyrics expressed a happy OPTIMISM quite different from that in "I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN."  It is called

"NEW SUN IN THE SKY"

Rhythmic RHYME and REPETITION give it its SPARKLE and OPTIMISM -- especially the reliance on the word "NEW"...


"NEW SUN IN THE SKY"
From The Band Wagon (1931)
LYRIC BY HOWARD DIETZ
(Music by Arthur Schwartz)

  1  I see a new sun up in a new sky,
  2  And my whole horizon has reached a new high.
  3  Yesterday my heart sang a blue song,
  4  But today hear it hum a cheery new song.
  5  I dreamed a new dream.
  6  I saw a new face,
  7  And I'm spreading sunshine all over the place.
  8  With a new point of view,
  9  Here's what greets my eye:
10  New love, new luck, new sun in the sky!


But the most famous song in The Band Wagon was a DIFFERENT kind of LOVE SONG...BEAUTIFUL but EERIE and MYSTERIOUS in the  sense that the lyrics are DESPERATELY ROMANTIC but almost EXISTENTIAL in the sense of struggling against the UNKNOWN or UNKNOWABLE (ie, “the dark”...”the night”) seeming to symbolize an inevitable NEGATIVE FATE (death...?  life’s senseless cruelties...?) with the only temporary reprieve the ROMANTIC FEELINGS the narrator and lover have for each other...

At any rate there is a HAUNTING PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE and mysterious feeling of FATALISM not found in the rather straight forward ballad lyrics of other lyricists of the period, including those of Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter that we have been studying...

The title of the song itself is reflective of this mood... "DANCING IN THE DARK"...

The entire song has less than 100 words in its single verse and refrain...
but is filled with a lyrical URGENCY in its use of RHYME,  REPETITION,  and ALLITERATION that is HAUNTING in itself...


"DANCING IN THE DARK"
From THE BANDWAGON (revue) (1931)
LYRICS BY HOWARD DIETZ
(Music by Arthur Schwartz)
    (Verse)
  1  What though love is old?
  2  What though song is old?
  3  Through them we can be young!
  4  Hear this heart of mine
  5  Make yours part of mine!
  6  Dear one, tell me that we're one!

    (Refrain)
  1  Dancing in the dark till the tune ends.
  2  We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends.
  3  We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here.
  4  Time hurries by -- we're here and gone.
  5  Looking for the light of a new love.
  6  To brighten up the night, I have you, love.
  7  And we can face the music together
  8  Dancing in the dark.



There is also a somewhat similar underlying feeling of UNCERTAINTY in another famous and beautiful DIETZ-SCHWARTZ song from the 1930s but this one with also an EROTIC tone to its lyrics --


“YOU AND THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC"
From Revenge with Music (1934)
LYRICS BY HOWARD DIETZ
(Music by Arthur Schwartz)


    (Verse)
  1  Song is in the air
  2  Telling us romance is ours to share.
  3  Now at last we’ve found one another alone.
  4  Love like yours and mine
  5  Has the thrilling glow of sparkling wine.
  6  Make the most of time ere it has flown.

    (Refrain)
  1  You and the night and the music
  2  Fill me with flaming desire,
  3  Setting my being completely on fire!
  4  You and the night and the music
  5  Thrill me but will we be one
  6  After the night and the music are done?
  7  Until the pale light of dawning and daylight,
  8  Our hearts will be throbbing guitars.
  9  Morning may come without warning
10  And take away the stars.
11  If we must live for the moment,
12  Love till the moment is through!
13  After the night and the music die,
14  Will I have you?
There is also an unusual lyric to the low-keyed DIETZ-SCHWARTZ song

“BY MYSELF”
from the show Between the Devil (1937)

that can be interpreted as either a Torch Song with a meaning similar to "I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN" that we played earlier or a Song of Independence...

Is the singer being BRAVE or FOOLING HIMSELF in the face of loss...a sincere or insincere narrator...?  Reminds one of that pop song from the '60s "got along without you before I met you, gonna get along without you now" or Laurie's song "Many a New Day" from Oklahoma!...but in a quieter, less brassy, and less secure manner...

In its structure notice the REPEATED USE of the title phrase "by myself"...emphasized by the final rhyming of "my own" and "alone"...

"BY MYSELF"
From Between the Devil (1937)
LYRICS BY HOWARD DIETZ
(Music by Arthur Schwartz)

I'll go my way by myself
Like walking under a cloud.
I'll go my way by myself
All alone in a crowd.
I'll try to apply myself
And teach my heart how to sing.
I'll go my way by myself
Like a bird on the wing.
I'll face the unknown.
I'll build a world of my own.
No one knows better than I, myself,
I'm by myself alone.


(FRED ASTAIRE’S version of “I GUESS I’LL HAVE TO CHANGE MY PLAN”)

It is important to note that these songs were written during the GREAT DEPRESSION of the 1930s and that might be a factor in their DARK or AMBIGUOUS mood.  In fact, there is a recent book by academic Morris Dickstein that uses one of these songs as its title: Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression.


However, Dietz could also write wonderfully conventional FUNNY and WITTY lyrics, such as those in DIETZ-SCHWARTZ latter-day revue Inside USA (1948) -- a whirlwind tour of the US (loosely based on John Gunther’s popular travel book of the same name). 




The revue Inside USA includes such witty List or Catalog Songs as
“RHODE ISLAND IS FAMOUS FOR YOU” with a VERSE that begins the song

Ev'ry state has something
Its Rotary Club can boast of;
Some product that the state
Produces the most of.
Rhode Island is little, but oh my,
It has a product anyone would buy.

and then in its REFRAIN portions uses such lines as

Grand Canyons come from Colorada,
Gold comes from Nevada
(Divorces also do).
And you,
You come from Rhode Island,
And little old Rhode Island is famous for you!
(Note that "Colorada" is a form of what we call "FORCED RHYME" -- to make it rhyme with "Nevada" -- although it is done with both the lyricist and listener knowing it is happening and becoming a joke within itself...like a pun...)


Also from Inside USA is a FUNNY Torch-like Song called
“BLUE GRASS”
("blue" having a double meaning here...the color of the Kentucky grass and the singer's unhappy emotional state...and wonderful PLAY-ON-WORDS throughout...many having to do with things associated with HORSE RACING...)

"BLUE GRASS"
From Inside USA (1948)
LYRICS BY HOWARD DIETZ
(Music by Arthur Schwartz)

    (Verse)
  1  Down in Kentucky the horses devil a man.
  2  A lady in Louisville is only an also-ran.
  3  I got a forehead full of frowns
  4  Since I came to Churchill Downs.

    (Refrain 1)
  1  Blue grass, blue grass--
  2  Lost my lover in the blue grass.
  3  Blame the ponies in the blue grass.
  4  Hard to compete with gallopin' feet.
  5  Blue dawn, blue noon--
  6  I only see him in a blue moon.
  7  Lost my lover in the blue, blue grass.
  8  In the cold when I should be warm,
  9  He can't keep me warm with a Racing Form.
10  In the cold.   Guess I lost my hold.
11  Ain't as frisky as a three-year-old.
12  Nightmare, day mare.
13  Feelin' older than the gray mare.
14  Lost my lover in the blue, blue grass.


    (Refrain 2)
  1  Blue grass, blue grass--
  2  Lost my lover in the blue grass.
  3  Blame the ponies in the blue grass.
  4  They get the rush, I get the brush.
  5  Rides 'em, walks 'em.
  6  In his sleep he even talks 'em.
  7  Found my rival in the blue, blue grass.
  8  In the cold, and it looks as though
  9  I ain't in the dough -- even place or show.
10  In the cold.  I would give my all--
11  Even move my bed into a stall.
12  Might be lucky
13  Far away from old Kentucky.
14  Lost my lover to the blue, blue grass.


HOWARD DIETZ wrote an interesting autobiography entitled DANCING IN THE DARK published in the early 1970s that tells entertainingly about both his MGM public relations and Broadway lyric-writing days and also more seriously about his fight against Parkinson’s Disease beginning in 1954.

In 1951 HOWARD DIETZ married his third wife, the esteemed Broadway costume designer LUCINDA BALLARD, who lived with him (mainly in their home in Sands Point, New York) for the next 32 years until his death in 1983 after his long up-and-down struggle with Parkinson's Disease.

HOWARD DIETZ large collection of LETTERS & ARTIFACTS are housed in
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTION FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS at Lincoln Center and is the largest single collection of items on any subject or individual in the Center's library.

HOWARD DIETZ long-time composing partner ARTHUR SCHWARTZ died in 1984, a year after Dietz.  ARTHUR SCHWARTZ' son is the noted New York popular music authority and broadcaster, JONATHAN SCHWARTZ (born 1938), who has worked on his broadcasts to keep the music of the great classic standards of his father and HOWARD DIETZ and others alive and well heard.  He is a recognized authority (even by Sinatra) on the classic songs from this period sung by Frank Sinatra.

One of the most famous and great fun lyrics of HOWARD DIETZ with music by ARTHUR SCHWARTZ was written by the team as a new song for the 1953 MGM movie using their old songs, THE BAND WAGON.

This song has become a SHOW BIZ ANTHEM like Irving Berlin's "There's No Business Like Show Business" or Johnny Mercer-Richard Whiting's "Hurray for Hollywood" or Cole Porter's "Another Op'nin' Another Show"

The song is "THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT"...

The complete lyrics to the song “THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT" have witty allusions to many theatrical works -- both popular and classical --

Sophocles' Oedipus Rex
"Where a chap kills his father
And causes a lot of bother"

Shakespeare's Hamlet
"Where a ghost and a prince meet
And ev'ryone ends in mincemeat"

The patriotic theatrical pioneer George M Cohan
"The gag
May be waving the flag
That began
With a Mister Cohan"

and the lyric promises
"No death like you get in Macbeth,
No ordeal like the end of Camille"

The musical film THE BAND WAGON with an all DIETZ-SCHWARTZ music stars

     FRED ASTAIRE

            CYD CHARISSE

                NANETTE FABRAY

                    OSCAR LEVANT

                            JACK BUCHANAN
       

THE EARLY COLE PORTER SONGS INTERPRETER "HUTCH" (1900-1969)

The early COLE PORTER SONGS interpreter
HUTCH
(Leslie Arthur Hutchison)
(1900 - 1969)

"I suppose I was lucky to be in Paris at the time Cole Porter was starting to write his big hits...He taught me how to sing his songs and introduced me to the right people."  Hutch - Desert Island Disks 1953


HUTCH (Leslie Arthur Hutchinson)  was born on the Spice Island of Grenada on the 7th March, 1900. His father, a hatter and dry goods merchant, played the organ in the local church and young Hutch learned to tickle the ivories as soon as he was able to climb onto his father's knee.
 
In his early teens Hutchinson went to New York to study law but he quickly realized that his funds couldn't hope to pay for his tuition let alone his upkeep. He worked in a variety of mundane day-jobs, playing the piano and singing in bars at night, and gradually he developed his own style - a skillful mix of technique, tact and velvet-voiced charm.

By 1925, Hutch had already recorded a couple of records and was a member of The Henry 'Broadway' Jones band, playing the millionaire's playground - Palm Beach, Miami. The band lodged in the Negro quarters, segregated from the white wonderland by a narrow wooden bridge, and one steamy Florida night, according to Hutch, a sinister flame appeared on a hill overlooking the city. It was the fiery cross of the Klu-Klux-Klan.

'I knew the real ague of terror that night.  My legs trembled as the Klansmen
passed in parade.  Without legal rights of search, they kicked open doors, flashing torches on our faces, demanding to know if we were harboring their intended victim. When we gave innocent answers, furniture was smashed and our possessions thrown around."

Hutch left the USA shortly afterwards and headed instead for France.   When he arrived in 1926, fashionable Paris was in the grip of the Jazz-age; the sophisticated night clubs along the Champs-Elysees was thronging with society flappers, foreign millionaires and European aristocracy.  Hutch, with his suave good looks and mastery of the keyboard, was soon proving quite a draw at Joe Zelli's, a club which numbered amongst its clientele some of the richest hep-cats in all of Europe.

It was here that Hutch was spotted by the London impresario C. B. Cochrane, who straightaway booked him to play in the Rogers & Hart revue 'One Damn Thing After Another at the London Pavilion in 1927. He was an immediate hit. The audiences adored his relaxed poise and fluid style. His debonair trademarks of a red carnation buttonhole and a white breast-pocket handkerchief (with which he mopped his brow with flamboyant aplomb), drew such a plethora of gifts from admirers that he could have easily opened a florists cum milliners with the surplus.

Hutch became the resident entertainer at Quaglino's, one of London's top cabaret night spots, where his renditions of classic Cole Porter song included "Let's Do It" - a song which Hutch had made his own, and to which he frequently added extra verses... sometimes up to seventy or more.  He is also famous for his rendition of another kind of Cole Porter song -- the torch ballad "Beguine the Begine."  Porter's lament "I'm a Gigolo" was probably written with the bisexual Hutchison in mind.

Hutch's peak years were from the early 1920's till the late 40's and during those two decades, he was a huge star, his records selling by the millions.  His life was not without scandals, including reported liasons with members of the aristocracy.  During the 50's and 60's he regularly appeared on TV and radio, and though ill-health plagued his later years, he continued to perform in cabaret.  He died penniless despite the hundreds of classic recordings he left behind him.

BIOGRAPHICAL COMPARISONS: THE GERSHWINS AND COLE PORTER

    BIOGRAPHICAL COMPARISONS: 
THE GERSHWINS AND COLE PORTER

IRA GERSHWIN (Israel Gershvin [Gershovitz]) was born in LOWER MANHATTAN to aspiring middle class Jewish parents in 1896; brother GEORGE (Jacob) was born in BROOKLYN two years later in 1898. 

COLE (Albert) PORTER was born in PERU a small town in Indiana in 1891, the only son in a wealthy Episcopalian family.  Cole's father was the town druggist, but Cole's business-shrewd maternal Grandfather, J. O. COLE, was one of the wealthiest men in the state of Indiana and his grandchild was more than appropriately doted upon.  So it is easy to discern the derivation of Cole's first name (his mother's maiden name).

IRA GERSHWIN was considered the more "intellectual" of the two Gershwin brothers when they were children.  His  parents bought a piano for IRA when he was 12 years old but 10-year-old brother GEORGE immediately put it to dazzling use to everyone's amazement.  He had taught himself how to play the piano by watching local street musicians.

COLE PORTER took piano and violin lessons beginning at age 6.  He composed the words and lyrics for his first song at age 10 and his doting Mother had 100 copies printed for family and friends.  He enrolled at the exclusive Worcester Academy when he was 14 where he came under the influence of a music teacher who gave him advice that would guide him in all his musical endeavors:  "Words and music must be so inseparably wedded to each other that they are like one."  Perhaps that is one reason that for the rest of his life, Cole Porter would compose both the words and the music for almost all of his many songs. 

IRA and GEORGE GERSHWIN attended New York Public Schools where IRA began a life-long friendship with fellow lyricist E. Y. (Yip) Harburg, who shared with IRA a love for word play and the satiric lyrics found in the comic opera works of W. S. Gilbert (Gilbert & Sullivan).  Afterward, IRA and Harburg attended City College together for a time on scholarship but IRA dropped out without graduating and took odd jobs hoping to find a way to earn his living through his word play and comic verse.  GEORGE did not attend college but at the tender age of 15 began working as the youngest "song plugger" on TIN PAN ALLEY, New York's famous popular music publishing market.  GEORGE's interest and genius was always in the symphonic or tonal aspect of the music.  He left it up to Ira and others to write the lyrics.  On the other hand, literary IRA's forte was always exclusively with the lyrics.  The first song they wrote together that was produced on Broadway was "The Real American Folk Song (is a Rag)" for the show Ladies First in 1918. 

COLE PORTER graduated from Worcester as class valedictorian and then attended Yale University where he wrote over 300 songs (including 6 full-length shows) for on-campus musical comedy productions, the Yale Glee Club, and other campus-associated musical endeavors -- including, perhaps surprisingly, a number of athletic fight songs (including "Bulldog") that continue to be in the Yale sports repertoire to this day.  He graduated from Yale in 1913 and then attended Harvard Law School for a time at his Grandfather's request although his heart was in his music and his witty sophisticated lyrics.

GEORGE GERSHWIN scored his first big song hit with "Swanee" in 1919 with lyrics by Irving Caesar and popularized by Al Jolson when Jolson included it in his national touring production of the musical Sinbad.  GEORGE scored again with "Somebody Loves Me" with lyrics by Buddy DeSylva and Bullard MacDonald, written for the revue George White's Scandals in 1924.  By this time IRA himself had written lyrics for several now-forgotten Broadway shows with composers as celebrated as Vincent Youmans.  But in 1924 GEORGE and IRA collaborated on their first full-length musical together, LADY BE GOOD, with its jazzy, score that included the title song and the jarringly rhythemic "Fascinating Rhythm."   (The original score also included the wonderfully bluesy "The Man I Love" but was cut by the producers because it was deemed "too slow").  Afterward, GEORGE never wrote another melody for which IRA didn't write the lyrics (except for some lyrical work in PORGY AND BESS by DuBose Heyward).   Other musical successes for the Brothers Gershwin in the 1920's were FUNNY FACE ("'S Wonderful" and "How Long Has This Been Going On") and "OH, KAY! ("Someone to Watch Over Me").  In 1930 GIRL CRAZY was another big hit starring the young Ginger Rogers introducing "Embraceable You" (which audiences apparently thought she was) and young Ethel Merman introducing "I've Got Rhythm" (which audiences apparently thought she had).  Other songs from this hit-filled show were "Bidin' My Time" and "But Not for Me."  Also in 1930 appeared the Gershwins' STRIKE UP THE BAND with its rousing title song and "I've Got a Crush on You."

COLE PORTER married the socialite Linda Lee Thomas in 1919 and they began a lavish lifestyle in Europe while he contributed to musicals in New York, London, and Paris throughout the late 1910s and the 1920s without notable success until his musical PARIS with its delightfully risque double-entendre "Let's Do It" appeared on Broadway in 1928.   This was followed by WAKE UP AND DREAM ("What is This Thing Called Love") and FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN ("You Do Something to Me" and "You Don't Know Paris") both in 1929.  The following year, the show THE NEW YORKERS hit Broadway along with the Great Depression now in full bloom with its controversial "Love for Sale" and in 1932 GAY DIVORCE with "Night and Day."

THE GERSHWINS left the world of innocuous musical comedy and won the Pulitzer Prize for their satiric political musical OF THEE I SING (title song, "Love is Sweeping the Country," "Who Cares") in 1931 and four years later wrote (with DuBose Heyward) the folk opera musical PORGY AND BESS ("Summertime," "I Got Plenty of Nuthin'," "It Ain't Necessarily So," "Bess, You is My Woman Now") which is one of a handful of musicals from the Broadway stage that is performed by classical opera companies today.

COLE PORTER in the 1930s stayed with the sophisticated Musical Comedy formula (as he did throughout his career) with great and lasting success.  His masterpiece from this period is undoubtedly the often-revived ANYTHING GOES in 1934 with such standards as the title song, "All Through the Night," "You're the Top," "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," "I Get a Kick Out of You."   The next year came JUBILEE with "Begin the Beguine" and "Just One of Those Things."  And a year later, RED, HOT, AND BLUE with Ethel Merman, Bob Hope, and Jimmy Durante all biding for top billing with such songs as the title song, "It's De-Lovely," "Ridin' High." 

THE GERSHWINS went to Hollywood and wrote songs for movies in the depression-ridden 1930s that included an original score for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie musical SHALL WE DANCE (1937) that introduced such songs as "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me."

COLE PORTER went to Hollywood in the 1930s and wrote songs for the movies.  However, only "Night and Day" remains of his Broadway score for GAY DIVORCE when it was turned into the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie re-titled THE GAY DIVORCEE (1934).

GEORGE GERSHWIN died in Hollywood of a brain tumor in 1937 at the age of 38.  IRA continued to work with other composers after GEORGE's death despite his anguish over the sudden loss of his beloved and talented brother.

COLE PORTER lost the permanent use of his legs in a riding accident also in the year 1937.  He continued to work on musicals for most of the rest of his life despite great pain and only ambulatory movement with the help of others.

IRA GERSHWIN, among other things in the next two decades, wrote the lyrics to the innovative "psychological" Broadway musical  LADY IN THE DARK with composer KURT WEILL in 1941 and the movie musical COVER GIRL with composer JEROME KERN in 1944 ("Long Ago and Far Away").  He concluded his career by writing the lyrics for the Judy Garland movie classic A STAR IS BORN with composer HAROLD ARLEN in 1954 that included the great torch song "The Man That Got Away," probably feeling that his type of sophisticated and witty lyrics had also "got away" in the emerging era of rock 'n roll.  He wrote a book explaining many of his classic lyrics entitled LYRICS ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS in 1959.  IRA GERSHWIN died at his home in California in 1983 at the age of 87.

COLE PORTER wrote in 1948 the music for what many believe was his greatest score and artistic and commercial success, KISS ME KATE, about a theatrical company putting on Shakespeare's play THE TAMING OF THE SHREW that allowed him all kinds of erudite classic verbal fun with both Shakespeare and the theater in general.  In the 1950s, he wrote the music and lyrics for the relatively successful Broadway musicals CAN CAN and SILK STOCKINGS and the movie HIGH SOCIETY with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Grace Kelly.  COLE PORTER died at his home in California in 1964 at the age of 73.

IRA GERSHWIN married his life-long wife Leonore in 1926.  She survived his death and made grant money available in later years for recorded versions of IRA's classic shows with GEORGE to be produced with current Broadway performers.  They are available on CD recordings.  GEORGE never married but had romantic laisons with a number of women including the actress and singer Kitty Carlisle who later married one of the Gershwin collaborators on their great shows, Moss Hart.


COLE PORTER's wife, socialite LINDA LEE THOMAS of Louisville, Ky, whom he married in 1919, was almost ten years older than Cole.  They lived a lavish life in both Europe and California.  Porter himself was gay and their marriage was apparently sexless, but Thomas had been involved in a brutal first marriage and remained a loyal companion and support to her husband until her death in 1952.  The song "True Love" from the 1956 film HIGH SOCIETY has been called a tribute to her and their life together (just as IRA GERSHWIN's lyric to "Our Love is Here to Stay" in the 1938 film The Goldwyn Follies has been called a tribute to GEORGE from IRA).  COLE PORTER is buried beside his wife LINDA LEE THOMAS in a cemetery in the old Porter hometown of Peru, Indiana. 





      



  

Porter ANOTHER OP'IN' ANOTHER SHOW

ANOTHER OP'NIN', ANOTHER SHOW
From Kiss Me Kate (1948)
LYRICS BY COLE PORTER
(Music by Cole Porter)

  1  Another op'nin', another show
  2  In Philly, Boston, or Baltimo'.
  3  A chance for stage folks to say hello!
  4  Another op'nin' of another show.
  5  Another job that you hope will last,
  6  Will make your future forget your past.
  7  Another pain where the ulcers grow,
  8  Another op'nin' of another show.
  9  Four weeks, you rehearse and rehearse.
10  Three weeks, and it couldn't be worse.
11  One week, will it ever be right?
12  Then out of the hat, it's that big first night.
13  The overture is about to start.
14  You cross your fingers and hold your heart.
15  It's curtain time and away we go--
16  Another op'nin',
17  Just another op'nin' of another show!

CHARACTERISTICS OF COLE PORTER SONGS

COLE  PORTER
(1891 - 1964)

All of COLE PORTER’s shows were either REVUES or witty MUSICAL COMEDIES.  He wrote both the WORDS and MUSIC for all of his songs.  He did NOT write the books (scripts) for his shows.  He left that for professional writers dedicated to that area of work. 

A COLE PORTER song was usually written for a SOPHISTICATED New York or London  audience and often fell under one of these three song types --

    1.    Witty LIST SONGS (or “catalog” songs), sometimes with risque or double entendre meanings or with then-current topical references (that were often of necessity changed either by Cole or others with the passing of time to keep them relevant to the listener/audience and/or because of censorship problems).

    2.    Highly dramatic and INTENSE LOVE SONGS with evocative imagery.

    3.    BREEZY LOVE SONGS with interesting rhymes or ingenious wordplay.

Similar to the work of IRA GERSHWIN and the other great lyricists of this period, COLE PORTER’s lyrics often employ internal and multiple RHYME SCHEMES and REPETITION of words and phrases (although they are presented in a natural phrasing and are not always apparent to the casual listener). 

          

Classic Cole Porter Songs Introduced in the

Original 1934 Broadway Production of

A N Y T H I N G   G O E S

All Through the Night
(Intense LOVE Song)


Anything Goes
(Topical Subject LIST Song}


Blow, Gabriel, Blow
(Upbeat NOVELTY Song in the
“Black Spiritual” Tradition)


The Gypsy in Me
(Breezy LOVE Song)


 I Get a Kick Out of You
(Breezy LOVE Song)


 You’re the Top
(Name-Dropping LIST Song)

Porter YOU'RE THE TOP

 "YOU'RE THE TOP"
From Anything Goes (1934)
LYRICS BY COLE PORTER
(Music by Cole Porter)

    (First Verse HE)
  1  At words poetic, I'm so pathetic
  2  That I always have found it best,
  3  Instead of getting 'em off my chest,
  4  To let 'em rest unexpressed,
  5  I hate parading my serenading
  6  As I'll probably miss a bar,
  7  But if this ditty is not so pretty
  8  At least it'll tell you how great you are.

    (First Refrain)
  1  You're the top!  You're the Coliseum.
  2  You're the top!  You're the Louvre Museum.
  3  You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss.
  4  You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare's sonnet, 
  5  You're Mickey Mouse! 
  6  You're the Nile.  You're the Tower of Pisa.
  7  You're the smile on the Mona Lisa.
  8  I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop.
  9  But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

    (Second Verse SHE)
  1  Your words poetic are not pathetic.
  2  On the other hand, boy, you shine,
  3  And I can feel after every line
  4  A thrill divine down my spine.
  5  Now gifted humans like Vincent Youmans
  6  Might think that your song is bad,
  7  But for a person who's just rehearsin'
  8  Well, I gotta say this, my lad:

    (Second Refrain)
  1  You're the top!  You're Mahatma Gandhi.
  2  You're the top!  You're Napoleon Brandy.
  3  You're the purple light of a summer night in Spain.
  4  You're the National Gallery, you're Garbo's salary,
  5  You're cellophane! 
  6  You're sublime.  You're turkey dinner.
  7  You're the time of a Derby winner.
  8  I'm a toy balloon that’s fated soon to pop.
  9  But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!

    (Third Refrain)
  1  You're the top!  You're a Ritz hot toddy.
  2  You're the top!  You're a Brewster body.
  3  You're the boats that glide on the sleepy Zuider Zee.
  4  You're a Nathan panning, you're Bishop Manning,
  5  You're broccoli!
  6  You're a prize.  You're a night at Coney.
  7  You're the eyes of Irene Bordoni.
  8  I'm  broken doll, a fol-de-fol, a blop.
  9  But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!
    (Fourth Refrain)
  1  You're the top!  You're a dance in Bali.
  2  You're the top!  You're a hot tamale.
  3  You're an angel, you, simply too, too, too diveen,
  4  You're a Boticcelli, You're Keats, You're Shelley,
  5  You're Ovaltine!
  6  You're a boon, you're the dam at Boulder.
  7  You're the moon over Mae West's shoulder.
  8  I'm the nominee of the G.O.P. or GOP.
  9  But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!

      (Fifth Refrain)
  1  You're the top!  You're an arrow collar. 
  2  You're the top!  You're a Coolidge dollar,
  3  You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire.
  4  You're an O'Neill drama, you're Whistler's mama,
  5  You're camembert!
  6  You're a rose.  You're Inferno's Dante,
  7  You're the nose on the great Durante.
  8  I'm just in the way, as the French would say, "de trop."
  9  But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!

      (Sixth Refrain)   
  1  You're the top!  You're the Tower of Babel.
  2  You're the top!  You're the Whitney stable.
  3  By the river Rhine you're a sturdy stein of beer.
  4  You're a dress from Sak's, you're next year's taxes,
  5  You're stratosphere!
  6  You're my thoist.  You're a Drumstick Lipstick.
  7  You're da foist in the Irish svipstick.
  8  I'm a frightened frog that can find no log to hop.
  9  But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!

    (Seventh Refrain)
  1  You're the top!  You're a Waldorf salad.
  2  You're the top!  You're a Berlin ballad.
  3  You're a baby grand of a lady and a gent.
  4  You're an old Dutch master, you're Mrs. Astor,
  5  You're Pepsodent!
  6  You're romance, you're the steppes of Russia.
  7  You're the pants on a Roxy usher.
  8  I'm a lazy lout that's just about to stop.
  9  But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!

 

Porter I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU

"I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU"
From Anything Goes (1934)
LYRICS BY COLE PORTER
(Music by Cole Porter)

    (Verse)
  1  My story is much too sad to be told,
  2  But practically ev'rything leaves me totally cold.
  3  The only exception I know is the case
  4  When I'm out on a quiet spree
  5  Fighting vainly the old ennui,
  6  And I suddenly turn and see
  7  Your fabulous face.

    (Refrain)
  1  I get no kick from champagne.
  2  Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all,
  3  So tell me why should it be true
  4  That I get a kick out of you?
  5  Some get a kick from cocaine.
  6  I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
  7  That would bore me terrific'ly too.
  8  Yet I get a kick out of you.
  9  I get a kick ev'rytime I see
10  You standing there before me.
11  I get a kick though it's clear to me
12  You obviously don't adore me.
13  I get no kick in a plane,
14  Flying too high with some guy in the sky
15  Is my idea of nothing to do,
16  Yet I get a kick out of you.


The lyrics were first altered shortly after being written. The last verse originally went as follows:

    I get no kick in a plane
    I shouldn't care for those nights in the air
    That the fair Mrs. Lindbergh goes through
    But I get a kick out of you.

After the Lindbergh kidnapping,[1] Porter changed the second and third lines to:

    Flying too high with some guy in the sky
    Is my idea of nothing to do

In the 1936 movie version, alternative lyrics in the second verse were provided to replace a reference to the drug cocaine, which were not allowed due to the Hays Code.

The original verse goes as follows:

    Some get a kick from cocaine
    I'm sure that if
    I took even one sniff
    That would bore me terrifically, too
    Yet, I get a kick out of you

Porter changed the first line to:

    Some like the perfume in Spain

One alternative version popularised by Alyson Ottaway changes the verse to:

    Some like the bop-type refrain
    I'm sure that if
    I heard even one riff
    It would bore me terrifically, too
    Yet, I get a kick out of you

On different occasions, Sinatra recorded the original ("cocaine") and both post-Hays versions: the first in 1953 ("perfume in Spain") and the second ("bop-type refrain") in 1962.