Cole Porter

[Fred Shapiro]

FROM NEW YORK TIMES, 21 AUG. 1994:


The Mussolini lyric from "You're the Top," cited in John Lukacs's article
"Benito Mussolini, Back From the Dead" (July 24), was written by P. G.
Wodehouse for the 1935 London production of "Anything Goes." In the
original 1934 New York production, the Porter refrain was:

You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire
You're an O'Neill drama
You're Whistler's mama
You're Camembert.

The fact that the Mussolini line does not appear in Robert Kimball's
"Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter" or "The Unpublished Cole Porter" is not
due to any desire to censor Porter's works; it is simply because he did
not write that version.

There have been numerous parodies of Porter's lyric scheme for "You're the
Top," including a fine ribald version written by Irving Berlin.

ROBERT H. MONTGOMERY JR.
Trustee, Cole Porter Musical and Literary Property Trusts
New York, N.Y.



Fred Shapiro


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------