What, you thought I only know teen pop?
A while ago, probably during the Music Club era, I had an e-mail exchange with Kevin about the shelf-life of today's rap songs. He suggested that the over-reliance on product placement as shorthand for style would limit the appeal of current hits in years to come. I agreed that this was probably the case by and large, but argued that an exceptional song would have no problem sustaining itself well past the era of its status symbols, and pointed to Cole Porter's You're the Top as evidence. The song is still considered one of the all-time greats, even though few people know what half of it means. (Personally I prefer the less gimmicky Porter tunes; give me So in Love or Night and Day over Let's Do It anytime).
My curiosity about the dated references in You're the Top was satisfied recently when Timothy Noah posted an exhaustive annotation. But now that Noah has posted an addendum I find myself curious all over again.
First of all, I'm curious about Noah's research methods. Particularly, I wonder why he waits until the addendum to acknowledge that someone else has already done a User's Guide (though a less thorough one). I assume that he simply didn't know about it originally (because he's not the type to crib without attribution and because he mentions the Playbill essay in the second post to correct a false assumption he'd made in the first). But what confuses me is why he didn't.
Noah states at the outset that his research method consists of Googling and more Googling. But here's his footnote to "You're a Nathan panning": "This one really had me stumped for awhile as I searched the Web in vain for a "Nathan Panning." Then I found a version of the lyrics in which the "P" was lowercase, and all became plain. "Panning" was a verb, not a surname!"
But a Google search for Nathan Panning turns up the Playbill explication on the first page. The result leaps out being the only one that's not just a page of song lyrics or a contemporary person who happens to be named Nathan Panning (or, now, Noah's own piece; I did consider that the Playbill essay climbed to the top after Noah linked to it in his second article, but Google hasn't indexed the second article yet). How could he have missed it?
On to a greater curiosity: Playbill's User's Guide mentions lyrics that were unfamiliar to me, and that do not appear in Noah's text (e.g., "You're Phenolax"). A quick Google finds a handful of sites that claim an obscure final verse that rhymes Phenolax with the absolutely unforgivable, "You're the boy who dares challenge Mrs. Baer's son, Max." A possible explanation is that Porter never published this verse, but performed it on a radio show with Rudy Vallee (hence the Vallee shout out, which no doubt killed).
Comments
I have an early recording of Cole Porter
singing "You're the Top." During the line that's usually written,"You're a rose/you're Inferno's Dante," he sings "You're REPOSE/you're Inferno's Dante." He probably changed it later.
Posted by: Arthur | June 17, 2005 9:26 AM
I think it is fascinating to see what he thinks we do or do not know, given that it is 'for dummies.' But most of all I want to know about the 'Arms of Venus/King Kong's penis/self-abuse' alternate lyrics.
Posted by: TG Gibbon | June 17, 2005 11:39 AM
The alternate lyrics are actually, I'm pretty sure, a parody by Irving Berlin. Don't know what the occasion for writing them was, but the verse goes:
You're the top
You're Miss Pinkham's tonic
You're the top
You're a high colonic.
You're the burning heat of a bridal suite in use
You're the breasts of Venus
You're King Kong's penis,
You're self-abuse
You're an arch
In the Rome collection
You're the starch
In a groom's erection
I'm an enuch who
Has just been through an op,
But if, Baby, I'm the bottom
You're the top
Miss Pinkham's tonic was apparently a high alcohol remedy for "female complaints," currently in vogue again among gullible types who think it can help parents conceive a girl.
King Kong's penis is Jack Black.
Posted by: radosh | June 17, 2005 12:01 PM
I assumed Pinkham's Tonic was like a pennyroyal tea alternative. A cutting-edge, jazz-age, Modernist RU486. But I'm still not clear on what an arch in Rome has to do with sex.
Posted by: TG Gibbon | June 17, 2005 12:51 PM
This Rome Collection?
I've e-mailed Noah. Stay tuned.
Posted by: radosh | June 17, 2005 1:11 PM
Friday, June 17, 2005 5:49 pm. Just found this page while googling for "phenolax" -- which I just heard on Radio Dismuke in a rendition of *You're the Tops*. I forget what it rhymed with; don't think it was "max".
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Posted by: j.g. owen | June 17, 2005 5:54 PM
Timothy Noah's explication of "You're the Top" is welcome and terrific fun, but because I can't let Anything Go (Ha! Cole Porter pun totally unintended!) I'll say again and publicly that "You're the Top" is the exception and not the rule (the most universal lines of that tune have guaranteed its longevity). And my point regarding rap (a lot of which I love) is that references to ephemeral commercial products are pervasive in the genre and threaten to make too many songs, which could have been significant, irrelevant by the time Daniel and I are dead. Or even 50.
Unrelated, in the last two weeks I have seen both Arrested Development and Cameo kick some serious ass on the inexplicably entertaining show "Hit Me Baby One More Time." Also, Wang Chung's recent TV version of "Hot in Herrrrrrre" was totally awesome, references to "Gucci collars" nothwithstanding. Of course the premise, which one can boil down to, "I am gettin' so hot...I am gonna take my clothes off..." is pretty much universal and eternal.
Posted by: Kevin G | June 17, 2005 11:30 PM
My copy of The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter (Da Capo, 1992) lists the Phenolax/Max Baer refrain after all the other lyrics, under the heading "FINALE, ACT I." Unlike the other refrains, this one has indications for multiple characters:
This book also has the original opening lines to the first refrain of "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love," before the birds and the bees were substituted:
Looks like Billie Holiday recorded a version with those lyrics, too...
Posted by: Kevin S | June 27, 2005 12:27 PM
You're the top without what was labeled in my copy of Fred Astaire's lyrics,contains this verse:"You're the top!/You're a dance in Bali,/You're the top, you're a hot tamale,/You're an angel,You're simply too, too, too diveen/ You're a Botticelli, Your'e Keats, You're Shelley/ You're Ovaltine./You're a boon, You're a dam at Boulder,/You're the Moon over Mae West's shoulder,/I'm the nominee of the G.O.P. or GOP!/But if baby I'm the bottom,/ You're the top!
What was odd about this verse is that it never made it on to the sound track of Delovely. Was this because of a sad sort of political terror? Or is Mae West too, too, too passee? The Boulder dam is the Hoover dam, but why not the rest? Well, didjah evah? M.P.
Posted by: Melissa Anne M. Pyle | January 18, 2006 6:03 PM
You're the top without what was labeled in my copy of Fred Astaire's lyrics,contains this verse:"You're the top!/You're a dance in Bali,/You're the top, you're a hot tamale,/You're an angel,You're simply too, too, too diveen/ You're a Botticelli, Your'e Keats, You're Shelley/ You're Ovaltine./You're a boon, You're a dam at Boulder,/You're the Moon over Mae West's shoulder,/I'm the nominee of the G.O.P. or GOP!/But if baby I'm the bottom,/ You're the top!
What was odd about this verse is that it never made it on to the sound track of Delovely. Was this because of a sad sort of political terror? Or is Mae West too, too, too passee? The Boulder dam is the Hoover dam, but why not the rest? Well, didjah evah? M.P.
Posted by: Melissa Anne M. Pyle | January 18, 2006 6:03 PM
Funny ... searching the definitive lyric sheet for "You're the Top" I found the phrase - "You're the towel of Babel."
Posted by: Barbie | October 27, 2006 7:46 AM