You're the Top

"You're the Top"
"You're the Top"
Song
Published	1934
Songwriter(s)	Cole Porter

"You're the Top" is a list song by Cole Porter, 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 time, with hundreds of parodies.^[1]^[2] Some of the lyrics were re-written by P. G. Wodehouse for the British version of Anything Goes. Composer Robert Kapilow refers to "You're the Top" as one of Porter's greatest songs.^[3]

Composition

Porter is believed to have written the song in Paris, while eating dinner at the Le Bœuf sur le toit with Lela Emery, the wife of Alastair Mackintosh. The two of them spent the time amusing themselves with a word game, "making up a list of superlatives that rhymed."^[2]

People and items referenced in the song

The following is a list of the references used in the version recorded by Cole Porter on November 26, 1934:

Colosseum
Louvre Museum
Melody from a symphony by Strauss
Bendel bonnet
Shakespeare's sonnets
Mickey Mouse
The Nile
The Tower of Pisa
The smile on the Mona Lisa
Mahatma Gandhi
Napoleon Brandy
Purple light of a summer night in Spain
National Gallery
Garbo's salary (alternately recorded as "Crosby's salary", a reference to Bing Crosby, who twice starred in film versions of Anything Goes)
Cellophane
Turkey dinner
The time of a Derby winner
Arrow collar
Coolidge Dollar (referencing the financial prosperity of the Roaring Twenties under US President Coolidge)
The nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire
O'Neill drama
Whistler's Mother
Camembert
Rose
Dante's Inferno
The nose of Jimmy Durante
Waldorf salad
Berlin ballad
A Dutch Master
Mrs. Astor: Mary Astor, Lady Astor,^[4]^[5] Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, or Ellen Tuck French^[6]
Pepsodent
Steppes of Russia
The pants on a Roxy usher

The 1934 recording with Cole Porter's vocals and piano is available on a CD -- Cole Porter: A Centennial Collection (track 18 of 20), Sony Legacy, CD release 2007

Additional references in other versions of the song:

Dance in Bali
Hot tamale
A painting by Botticelli
John Keats
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ovaltine
Boulder Dam
The Moon
Mae West's shoulder
The nominee of the G.O.P. (Republican Party, but this is the unflattering thing the singer says they are, "the bottom"; by 1934 the Republican party had consistently lost every major election since the 1930 midterms, including the 1932 Presidential election and the 1934 midterms)
Zuider Zee
Broccoli (which had only recently become well known in the US)
Ritz hot toddy
Brewster body
Bishop Manning
Nathan panning
A night at Coney
The eyes of Irène Bordoni
Tower of Babel
Whitney stable
Stein of beer
A dress from Saks Fifth Avenue
Next year's taxes
Stratosphere
Max Baer
Russian ballet
Rudy Vallée
Phenolax (a 1930s laxative made from phenolphthalein)
Drumstick lipstick
Irish Sweepstakes
Vincent Youmans

P. G. Wodehouse anglicised it for the British version of Anything Goes. Among 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" (both figures, later notorious, were widely admired at the time)^[7]^[8]

Versions of the song

In 1985, a series of Heinz Tomato Ketchup commercials in Canada featured various cover versions of the song as their jingle.^[9]
In John Mortimer's novel Paradise Postponed (1985) and the television series of the same name (Euston Films, 1986): A rendering of the song by a fictitious performer, Pinky Pinkerton, includes the line, "You're my Lady Grace", which signifies Lady Grace Fanner in the story.^[10]

Parodies

Porter biographer William McBrien wrote that at the height of its popularity in 1934 to 1935 it had become a "popular pastime" to create parodies of the lyrics.^[2] Porter, who himself had called the song "just a trick" the public would get bored by,^[2] was flooded with hundreds of parodies, one reportedly written by Irving Berlin.^[2] Despite the ribald nature of some of the parodies, McBrien believes a few, including a King Kong parody, were written by Porter or Berlin.^[11]

References

^ Redmond, James (1981). Drama, Dance and Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-521-22180-1.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e McBrien, William (1998). Cole Porter : a biography (1 ed.). New York: Knopf. pp. 169–171. ISBN 978-0-394-58235-1.
^ Kapilow, Robrert (2006). "'You're the Top'—Cole Porter (1934)". Library of Congress. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
^ Noah, Timothy (June 9, 2005). "A skeleton key to "You're the Top."". Slate. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
^ Day to Day. June 10, 2005. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
^ Botto, Louis (December 10, 1997). "A User's Guide to Cole Porter's "You're the Top". Playbill. Retrieved 2020-09-09.
^ "Mayfair, the Duchess of Argyll and the Headless Man polaroids". Another Nickel In The Machine. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
^ Hoge, Warren (16 August 2000). "London Journal; A Sex Scandal of the 60's, Doubly Scandalous Now". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
^ "1985 Canadian commercial – Heinz Ketchup – You're the Top". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
^ Mortimer, John (1985). Paradise Postponed. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 014009864X.
^ Noah, Timothy (18 June 2005). "Farewell to Berlin". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 13 February 2012.