"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]
The lyrics are particularly significant 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.
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People and items referenced in the song
The following is a list of many of the references made in the song:
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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")[2][3]
[1] This is a facetious witticism.[citation needed] Strauss was noted for his waltzes.
Versions of the song
- Barbra Streisand: In the 1972 film What's Up, Doc?. (The film also features several Porter compositions in the form of elevator music.)
- Diana Rigg: In the 1982 Agatha Christie Poirot film, Evil Under the Sun.
- Ella Fitzgerald: In her Cole Porter songbook.
- Cole Porter: Over the end titles of the 2004 biopic De-Lovely. A different version, also sung by Porter, appears in the soundtrack to the 2007 video game BioShock.
An episode[which?] of The Dick Van Dyke Show features a version of the song performed for Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) by her very young son Ritchie. In that version, Ritchie mistakenly alters the lyrics from "You're the Mona Lisa" to "You're the Mommy Lisa".
The song played a major role in the M*A*S*H episode "The Joker Is Wild" whereupon the loser of a "jokeoff" in the 4077th had to sing the song without his bottoms (pants) in the mess hall. Alan Alda's character Hawkeye ultimately had to make good on said promise.
Also sung as the introduction by Paul Jones and arranged by Richard Rodney Bennett for the ITV series The Charmer starring Nigel Havers
References
- ^ James Redmond (editor) Drama, Dance and Music Cambridge University Press 1981 page 60
- ^ Mayfair, the Duchess of Argyll and the Headless Man polaroids
- ^ WARREN HOGE London Journal; A Sex Scandal of the 60's, Doubly Scandalous Now New York Times 16 August 2000
External links
- Explication of lyrics by Slate.com
- Additional Explanation of lyrics by Slate.com
- Explication of lyrics by Playbill
- Additional risqué lyrics at Slate.com of disputed provenance, possibly by Irving Berlin or Porter himself
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