Friday, May 20, 2011

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.

1 comment:

  1. The Lindbergh kidnapping was in 1932, two years before "Anything Goes" opened.

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