Now that this blog is 4 years old and I’ve written up notes on more than 50 of Porter’s most recognized and often-performed songs, I’d like to make mention of an engaging, new book published in 2019: “The Letters of Cole Porter” by Cliff Eisen & Dominic McHugh, printed in Great Britain by Gomer Press […]

“It’s Bad For Me” is not a Cole Porter song that makes it to lists of his “top 100” and yet has been widely recorded. It first appeared in his 1933, musical, “Nymph Errant “, a somewhat controversial story about a young, English lady intent on losing her virginity that English women were expected to […]

So many of Porter’s songs have “Love” in the title that the listener has to be careful to distinguish between them. “I am in Love” debuted in “Can-Can” (1953), a show about Paris set in the 1890s, a time remembered for artists, music, dance and most of all, love. Dale Harris wrote about Porter in […]

“I Love Paris” was introduced in Porter’s 1953 musical “Can-Can”. This was a glorious time in the history of Broadway as shows like “Guys & Dolls”, “South Pacific” and “The King and I” were also in town. The book” tells the story of several showgirls in the 1890’s area of Montmartre (a large hill in […]

“Fifty Million Frenchmen” set in Paris (1929), a city very close to Porter’s heart as he was a lifelong admirer, featured this bittersweet song. In a New York Herald Tribune interview of the era, Porter commented that “he had written about thirty-five songs for the show and the ones that are in it now are […]

“All Through the Night”, composed while Porter was cruising down the Rhine,  debuted in the immensely popular show, “Anything Goes “(1934), “the quintessential 30’s musical”. Newspapers described opening night as the “greatest gala since the Depression began” as one society columnist reported that “even those sitting in the balcony were resplendent in chinchilla”. Some critics […]

Was introduced to the world in “Wake Up and Dream” (December 1929). This revue with 24 sets, 500 costumes, a large international cast, and “a thread of a book” garnered only mixed reviews. While The New Yorker characterized it as “one of the dullest revues ever put on the local boards”, the influential, contemporary critic […]

“C’est Magnifique” was first performed in “Can Can”, Porter’s show about Paris set in the 1890s, a time remembered for artists, music, dance and most of all, love. The story concerns the lives, loves and pure zest for life of some of the more Bohemian citizens of Paris. “It’s All Right with Me”, (see my […]

Published in 1950 for a show called “Out of this World”, “From this Moment On” became the show’s best-known song and a favorite of dance bands of the era. Surprisingly, it was dropped during off-Broadway tryouts only to become famous later through numerous recordings once it was finally introduced in a film version of “Kiss […]

“Fifty Million Frenchmen” (1929), see my posts of 6/18/17 and 1/13/18, was one of Cole Porter’s first successful, Broadway shows. The timing of its opening was problematic as it was introduced in the midst of a stock market collapse to mixed reviews. The panicked producers were so anxious to stimulate good publicity that they even […]