You're the Top

"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 many of the references made in the song:

P. G. Wodehouse anglicised it for the British version of Anything Goes. Amongst 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")[3][4]

Versions of the song

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 with one reportedly written by Irving Berlin.[2] Despite the "ribald" nature of some of the parodies, McBrien believes few, including a King Kong parody, were written by Porter or Berlin.[10]

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. ↑ "Mayfair, the Duchess of Argyll and the Headless Man polaroids". Another Nickel In The Machine. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ "It's De Lovely - The Authentic Cole Porter Collection". amazon.com. Retrieved 2015-11-14.
  6. ↑ "NPH and David Burtka singing Your The Top At Trevor Live". YouTube. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  7. ↑ "1985 Canadian commercial - Heinz Ketchup - You're the Top". YouTube. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  8. ↑ Mortimer, John (1985). Paradise Postponed. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 014009864X.
  9. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYWcbbwgOLc
  10. ↑ Noah, Timothy (18 June 2005). "Farewell to Berlin". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 13 February 2012.

External links

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