It’s been a while since I last posted (a mini Covid-19 break) and I haven’t written up a Frank Sinatra recording of a Porter song for 3 years (!) How is that possible? So let’s rectify that failing. Casting around, I came across an enchanting version of “Mind if I Make Love to You?” produced […]

“Let’s Misbehave” was introduced in one of Porter’s earliest musicals, “Paris” (1928). This show (produced by Ray Goetz, Irving Berlin’s brother-in-law) marked something of a turning in Porter’s career as he had finally reached a point after several failures in the 19 teens and early 1920s where he was willing to put himself into the […]

This sparkling number first appeared in the film “High Society” (1956)**, which was based on Philip Barry’s stage play “The Philadelphia Story”, starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly & Frank Sinatra. Crosby often claimed that “High Society” was his favorite film of all the movies that he made during his long career. If you love toe-tapping […]

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 […]