ADS-L Digest - 6 Mar 2006 to 7 Mar 2006 (#2006-67)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Mar 10, 2006, at 8:09 AM, George Thompson wrote, about "Let's Do It":

> I hope you have Louis' version.  After it, no one needed to have
> bothered to sing it again.  His was also very long, and must have
> included every verse.


>> [AMZ]
>> speaking of Cole Porter, i've been assembling a playlist of versions
>> of "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love".  (i have a pile of these
>> juxtaposition playlists.)  so far: Noel Coward, Ella Fitzgerald, Mary
>> Martin. Ella again in a different mood, Billie Holiday, Lee Wiley,
>> Greg Graffin/Joan Jett with a rock version, and the incomparable
>> Susannah McCorkle with a really long version (six minutes).
>> everybody has (somewhat-to-wildly) different words.

i've added Louis Armstrong's amazing almost 9-minute-long version.
but no, not quite all the verses; he cuts the second ("nightingales")
verse.  it takes so long because he sings it really slowly and amiably.

almost everybody varies the words at least a bit.  noel coward, for
whom it was a signature piece, changed the verses constantly to keep
them topical (and more and more risque as the years wore on).

but the mary martin and billie holiday versions i have are
essentially porter's original words, though not all his verses (he
had an intro and five verses).  including a first verse beginning
"And that's why Chinks do it, Japs do it, Up in Lapland, little Lapps
do it" (Holiday cuts the "and that's why") -- now generally replaced
by "Birds do it, bees do it, Even educated fleas do it".  the wiley
version i have gives only verses 4 and 5 (which most people don't get
to).  mccorkle sticks closely to the text, but does the verses in the
order 5 - 2 - 3 - first half of 4.  and so on.

i'm getting the words from the 1971 volume _Cole_ (edited by Robert
Kimball, with a biographical essay by Brendan Gill), pp. 88-9.  the
song is from the 1928 show "Paris".

the version in the 1973 _Cowardy Custard: The World of Noel Coward_
(pp. 50-3) is a complete take-off on the porter original, with
essentially nothing preserved.  this version has very little in
common with the version i have from "The Noel Coward Album" (live
from the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, recorded in 1955), though the book
says the song was first sung by Coward in cabaret in 1955.

arnold, doing textual analysis, now that i'm posting from home, where
these sources all live

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