You're the Top

"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. 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.

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."

People and items referenced in the song

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)

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.
• 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.

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. Porter, who himself had called the song "just a trick" the public would get bored by, was flooded with hundreds of parodies, one reportedly written by Irving Berlin. Despite the ribald nature of some of the parodies, McBrien believes a few, including a King Kong parody, were written by Porter or Berlin.

References

External links

• Explanation of lyrics by Slate.com
• Additional Explanation of lyrics by Slate.com
• Explication of lyrics by Playbill
• Library of Congress essay on Porter's version on the National Recording Registry.