Cole Porter (1891-1964) – a peep
May 29, 2022 Leave a comment
A peep indeed … With the illustrious life of such a gifted man I can’t do more here. He was one of the most talented song-writers in the history of American theatre. There are still revivals of his music. There has also been a memorable film about his life. His music has, of course, long outlived the stage shows for which they were written. He and his wife spent some years in Europe during the Jazz Age and this had an influence on his work.
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He is often praised for the sophistication of his lyrics. It is difficult for me to comment on the music itself … there are the memorable melodies and as I play a song like I love Paris I can see the interesting and significant minor-major switch – it is as if the melody, beginning in solemn darkness, lifts its face into sunlight. My partner, suffering from dementia, remembers little, but she can recall Night and Day. It is now our song and this post is dedicated to you, Claudie. Night and day, you are the one …
Song writers search for lyrical ideas and You’re the Top must rank as one of the most interesting songs – a love song of praise and adoration as well as a time capsule of the age, using the well-known and admired icons of the 1930s: You’re the Top. You’re Mahatma Ghandi. You’re the Top. You’re Napoleon Brandy. You’re the purple light of a summer night in Spain. You’re the National Gallery. You’re Garbo’s salary. You’re cellophane.
He did not shy away from serious matters in his music. Love for Sale, a song about a prostitute is heart-rending: I’ve been through the mill of love, old love, new love, every love but true love. The song Miss Otis regrets deals with a woman apologizing for not attending a luncheon date, because what happened during the night has put her on death row.
Just one of those things is a song about unbearable lightness in the process of a love affair ending. It is incisively bitter: So good-bye, dear, and Amen. Here’s hoping we meet now and then. It was great fun. But it was just one of those things.
So we see the emergence not only of a good song writer, in my opinion, but of a great one. He can also be witty and suggestive. In Let’s do it, considered as risqué by some at the time, we hear Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Let’s do it. Let’s fall in love.
His is a rich and enduring gift.
© Will
www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com
Bridgewater, Somerset West
May, 2022
Source: lyrics and image of Porter
Music & Lyrics by Cole Porter. Random House, New York.
My photograph of the piano
The piano at the Belles Rives Hotel in Juan Les Pins, south of France. Here Cole Porter visited other famous guests in the 1920s and 1930s. He probably played on this piano. I played on it myself.
Will Will Travel 