"You're the Top"
Song
Published1934
Songwriter(s)Cole Porter

"You're the Top" is a Cole Porter song from the 1934 musical Anything Goes. It is about a man and a woman who take turns complimenting each other. The best-selling version was Paul Whiteman's Victor single, which made the top five.

It was the most popular song from Anything Goes at the start with hundreds of parodies.[1][2]

The lyrics are particularly notable because they offer a snapshot as to what was highly prized in the mid-1930s and demonstrate Porter's rhyming ability.

Some of the lyrics were re-written by P. G. Wodehouse for the British version of Anything Goes.

People and items referenced in the song

The following is a list of the references used in the version recorded by Cole Porter on November 26, 1934:

The 1934 recording with Cole Porter's vocals and piano is available on a CD -- Cole Porter: A Centennial Collection (track 18 of 20), Sony Legacy, CD release 2007

Additional references in other versions of the song:

P. G. Wodehouse anglicised it for the British version of Anything Goes. Among other changes, he altered two lines from "You’re an O’Neill drama / You’re Whistler’s mama!" to "You’re Mussolini / You’re Mrs Sweeny" (both figures, later notorious, were widely admired at the time)[6][7]

Versions of the song

  • In 1985, a series of Heinz Tomato Ketchup commercials in Canada featured various cover versions of the song as their jingle.[8]
  • In John Mortimer's novel Paradise Postponed (1985) and the television series of the same name (Euston Films, 1986): A rendering of the song by a fictitious performer, Pinky Pinkerton, includes the line, "You're my Lady Grace", which signifies Lady Grace Fanner in the story.[9]

Parodies

Porter biographer William McBrien wrote that at the height of its popularity in 1934 to 1935 it had become a "popular pastime" to create parodies of the lyrics.[2] Porter, who himself had called the song "just a trick" the public would get bored by,[2] was flooded with hundreds of parodies, one reportedly written by Irving Berlin.[2] Despite the ribald nature of some of the parodies, McBrien believes a few, including a King Kong parody, were written by Porter or Berlin.[10] The performance of the song in the American Cabaret Theatre biographical musical Cole & Noel (2001) had the line "I'm talkin' King Kong's penis".

References

  1. ↑ Redmond, James (1981). Drama, Dance and Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-521-22180-1.
  2. 1 2 3 4 McBrien, William (1998). Cole Porter : a biography (1 ed.). New York: Knopf. pp. 169–171. ISBN 978-0-394-58235-1.
  3. ↑ Noah, Timothy (June 9, 2005). "A skeleton key to "You're the Top."". Slate. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  4. ↑ Day to Day. June 10, 2005. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  5. ↑ Botto, Louis (December 10, 1997). "A User's Guide to Cole Porter's "You're the Top". Playbill. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
  6. ↑ "Mayfair, the Duchess of Argyll and the Headless Man polaroids". Another Nickel In The Machine. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  7. ↑ Hoge, Warren (16 August 2000). "London Journal; A Sex Scandal of the 60's, Doubly Scandalous Now". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  8. ↑ "1985 Canadian commercial – Heinz Ketchup – You're the Top". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  9. ↑ Mortimer, John (1985). Paradise Postponed. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 014009864X.
  10. ↑ Noah, Timothy (18 June 2005). "Farewell to Berlin". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
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