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Today is the birthday of Cole Porter (Cole Albert Porter; Peru, Indiana; June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964 Santa Monica, California); composer and songwriter.  He defied the wishes of his grandfather and took up music as a profession.  Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre.  He began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage.  Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics, as well as the music, for his songs.  After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work.  In 1948 he had his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate.  It won the first Tony Award for Best Musical.  Porter’s other musicals include Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady, Anything Goes, Can-Can and Silk Stockings.  His numerous hit songs include “Night and Day”, “Begin the Beguine”, “I Get a Kick Out of You”, “Well, Did You Evah!”, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and “You’re the Top”.  He also composed scores for films, including Born to Dance (1936), which featured the song “You’d Be So Easy to Love”; Rosalie (1937), which featured “In the Still of the Night”; High Society (1956), which included “True Love”; and Les Girls (1957).

Porter maintained a luxury apartment in Paris, where he entertained lavishly. His parties were extravagant and scandalous, with “much gay and bisexual activity, Italian nobility, cross-dressing, international musicians and a large surplus of recreational drugs”. In 1918, he met Linda Lee Thomas, a rich, Louisville, Kentucky-born divorcée eight years his senior. She was beautiful and well-connected socially; the couple shared mutual interests, including a love of travel, and she became Porter’s confidante and companion. The couple married the following year. She was in no doubt about Porter’s homosexuality, but it was mutually advantageous for them to marry. For Linda, it offered continued social status and a partner who was the antithesis of her abusive first husband. For Porter, it brought a respectable heterosexual front in an era when homosexuality was not publicly acknowledged. They were, moreover, genuinely devoted to each other and remained married from December 19, 1919, until her death in 1954.

Select Song Lyrics

• If you want to buy my wares
  Follow me and climb the stairs …
  Love for sale.
  • “Love For Sale” in The New Yorkers (1930)

• There’s an, oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me.
  • “Night and Day” in Gay Divorce (1932)

• Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above.
  Don’t fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
  Don’t fence me in
• Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
  And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
  Send me off forever but I ask you please
  Don’t fence me in
  • “Don’t Fence Me In” (1934) written for a never-released film Adios, Argentina, later used in the film Hollywood Canteen (1944).

• I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
  And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
  I can’t look at hobbles and I can’t stand fences
  Don’t fence me in
  • “Don’t Fence Me In” (1934)

• What moments divine, what rapture serene.
  • “Begin the Beguine” in Jubilee (1935)

Paris (1928)

• Some Argentines, without means, do it,
  People say, in Boston, even beans do it.
  Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.
  • “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love” (there have been many variant renditions of this song by various artists).

• The chimpanzees in the zoos do it,
  Some courageous kangaroos do it
  Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.
• I’m sure giraffes on the sly do it,
  Even eagles as they fly do it,
  Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.
  • “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love”; an earlier variant, rather than “Even eagles…”: “Heavy hippopotami do it…”

• In shallow shoals, English soles do it
  Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it.
  • “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love”

• Electric eels I might add do it,
  Though it shocks ’em I know…
  • “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love”

• The world admits bears in pits do it,
  Even Pekingeses at the Ritz do it,
  Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.
  • “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love”

• If you want a future, darling,
  Why don’t you get a past?
  • “Let’s Misbehave”

• They say that spring
  Means just one thing
  To little lovebirds.
  We’re not above birds,
  Lets misbehave.
  • “Lets Misbehave”

• They say that bears
  Have love affairs
  And even camels,
  We’re merely mammals
  Let’s misbehave.
  • “Let’s Misbehave”

Anything Goes (1934)

• I get no kick from champagne.
  Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all,
  So tell me why it should be true
  That I get a kick out of you?
  • “I Get a Kick Out of You”

• 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.
  • “I Get a Kick Out of You”

• You’re the smile
  On the Mona Lisa.
  • “You’re the Top”

• In olden days a glimpse of stocking
  Was looked on as something shocking
  But now, Heaven knows,
  Anything goes.
  • “Anything Goes”; there are also variants on this line which read “But now, God knows,
    Anything goes”, but the most common renditions are done with “Heaven knows”

• Good authors, too, who once knew better words
  Now only use four-letter words
  Writing prose —
  Anything goes.
  • “Anything Goes”

Let’s Face It (1941)

• Too bad, I’m no poet,
  I happen to know it, But anyway
  Here’s a roundelay
  I wrote last night about you…
  • “Ev’rything I Love” (1941)

• You are my fav’rite star,
  My haven in heaven above,
  You are ev’rything I love.
  • “Ev’rything I Love” (1941)

• Sad times
  May follow your tracks,
  Bad times
  May bar you from Saks,
  Add times
  When Satan in slacks
  Breaks down your self control…
  • “Ace in the Hole”

• This rule I propose,
  Always have an ace in the hole.
• Always try to arrive at
  Having an ace some place private.
• Always have an ace in the hole.
  • “Ace in the Hole”

• You’re the pain in my —
  The hurricane in my —
  Supersensitive heart, dear.
  Still I love you, I know,
  And the reason is merely because
  You irritate me so!
  • “You Irritate Me So”

• Relax for a moment my Jerry
  Come out of your dark monastery
  While Venus is beaming above.
  Darling, let’s talk about love.
  • “Let’s Not Talk About Love”

Something To Shout About (1943)

• You’d be so nice to come home to
  You’d be so nice by the fire…
  • “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To”

• You’d be so nice,
  You’d be paradise
  To come home to and love.
  • “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To”

Mexican Hayride (1944)

• It must be fun to be you
  And play with love as you do
  To treat each new romance
  As merely one more dance
  Or just another book to glance through
  It must be fun to acquire
  Whatever heart you desire,
  And when you’re bored with it
  To tear it in two,
  It must be fun to be you.
  • “It Must Be Fun To Be You”

Kiss Me, Kate (1948)

• So kiss me Kate,
  Thou lovely loon,
  E’er we start on our honeymoon.
  Oh, kiss me, Kate, Darling devil divine,
  For now thou shall ever be mine.
  • “Kiss Me Kate”

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