Each Tuesday I will be selecting a lyric to post on the IPBlog. Starting today, September 1, 2015.
Please send comments and if the idea is popular, it will continue. The great american songbook cannot die. I will include a few lines about the composer and encourage you to google him/her/them if you like.
Thank you Arnie for this opportunity – I feel that lyrics qualify as poetry. The first selection is dedicated to Arnie, Founder and Editor in Chief of psychoanalyticpsychotherapy.net
Cole Porter – You’re The Top Lyrics
At words poetic I’m so pathetic
That I always have found it best
Instead of getting it off my chest
To let ’em rest unexpressed
I hate parading my serenading
As I’ll probably miss a bar
But if this ditty is not so pretty
At least it’ll tell you how great you are
You’re the top, you’re the Coliseum
You’re the top
You’re the Louvre Museum
You’re a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You’re a Bendel Bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet, you’re Mickey Mouse
You’re the Nile, you’re the Tower of Pisa
You’re the smile on the Mona Lisa
I’m a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
But if baby, I’m the bottom, you’re the top
You’re the top, you’re Mahatma Ghandi
You’re the top you are Napoleon Brandy
You’re the purple light of a summer night in spain
You’re the national gallery, you’re Garbo’s salary
You’re cellophane
You are sublime, you’re a Turkey dinner
You’re the time the time of the derby winner
I’m a toy balloon that is fated soon to pop
But if baby I’m the bottom, you’re the top, top
Steve, there is something I got to tell ya
What is it Judy? Well
You’re the top I am? You’re a Waldorf Salad
Oh no, no let me say it
You’re the top, me too? That’s right
You’re a Berlin ballad oh, that’s nice
You’re the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire
Actually I don’t dance very well
You’re an O’Neill drama, you’re Whistler’s mother
Mama sorry, you’re Camembert
You’re a rose, that is sweet
You’re inferno’s Dante
That’s a very intellectual reference.
You’re the nose watch it, I mean
What, what, wha, wha what on the great Durante, that’s better
I’m the lazy lout who is just about to storm let’s not storm
But if baby I’m the bottom
She’s the one for me
And I’ve got ‘im
‘Coz if baby I’m the bottom
You’re the top
I chose my favorite version: Click Here for: Ella Fitzgerald singing Your the Top by Cole Top on Youtube but there are others on youtube as well.
Cole Porter had the marvelous talent that allowed him to write both words and music. In my mind he was a true poet. from wikipedia: Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics, as well as the music, for his songs.
After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 30s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate. It won the first Tony Award for Best Musical.
Most of the Presidents of APsaA have used the Cole Porter Suite at the Waldorf during the annual winter meetings. It is magnificent.
Enjoy!
Jane Hall
janehallpsychotherapy.com