Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics (American Poets Project) [Hardcover]

Cole Porter (Author), Robert Kimball (Editor)

Book Description

Series: American Poets Project | Publication Date: April 6, 2006

Cole Porter possessed to a singular degree the art of expressing depth through apparent frivolity. The effervescent wit and technical bravura of his songs are matched by their unguarded revelations of feeling. In the words of editor Robert Kimball, "Porter wrote tellingly of the pain and evanescence of emotional relationships. He gentle mocked propriety and said that few things were simple or lasting or free from ambiguity." Of the masters of twentieth-century American songwriting, Porter was one of the few who wrote both music and lyrics, and, even in the absence of his melodies, his words distill an unmistakable mixture of poignancy and wit that marks him as a genius of light verse.

Selected from over eight hundred songs, here are Porter's finest flights of invention, lyrics that are an indelible part of 20th-century culture: "Let's Do It," "Love for Sale," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "Anything Goes," "In the Still of the Night," "I Concentrate on You," and dozens more.

Robert Kimball is a historian of the American musical theater whose books include The Gershwins (with Alfred Simon), Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake (with William Bolcom), Reading Lyrics (with Robert Gottlieb), and volumes devoted to the complete lyrics of Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Frank Loesser. He is the longtime advisor to the Cole Porter Musical and Literary Property Trust, is the editor of several books on Cole Porter, including Cole and The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter. He received a Drama Desk Award for his rediscovery of lost musical-theater manuscripts in a Secaucus, New Jersey warehouse.

Elegantly risqué, suffused with understated emotion, delightful in their bursts of comic invention, the witty and romantic lyrics of Cole Porter evoke a golden age of song. Here is the cream of half a century of songwriting, from the Jazz Age resonance of "Let's Misbehave" to such 50s classics as "Too Darn Hot" and "It's All Right With Me"-more than ninety of the most enduring works of America's master of bittersweet sophistication.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (April 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931082944
• ISBN-13: 978-1931082945
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #875,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PORTER CERTAINLY DESERVES TO BE ADDED TO THIS GREAT SERIES OF BOOKS., August 8, 2009

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D. Blankenship (The Ozarks) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics (American Poets Project) (Hardcover)

Cole Porter was one of the few grand song writers who actually not only wrote the lyrics for his songs, but also the music. It is said that it is quite impossible to separate the two as they are so intricately interwoven. This well may be. I must say though, as an individual who has listen to his work being presented in various forms for years, I had never actually sat down and read his lyrics as stand alones. How interesting this was and how grateful I am that the American Poets Project was collectively wise enough to present Porter's work in this format.

Much has been written of the "Lost Generation," that band of writers who through self imposed exiles who haunted Paris after World War I. It has always rather amazed and bewildered me that in all the books; the biographies I have read covering this period, few mention Cole Porter as playing a prominent role in this movement...if you will. Yet Porter epitomized that group of men and women who changed the way we view literature, culture, music and dance forever. Porter can arguably be named as one of the most influential song writers of the 1900s. Over 800 songs are attributed to him and he had a tremendous influence on the Broadway scene as well as Hollywood. Cole's wit and I might add sophisticated life experiences shine through in his work for those who care to listen. Cole's rather jaded outlook on life was pragmatic to the extreme. His lyrics addressed love, sex, pain, anguish, joy, homosexuality, promiscuousness and so much more, while in his own dry way poked a bit of fun at the rich and famous. All this was done in an age of censorship to the extreme. His efforts, conscious or not, led the way and opened the doors for many songwriters who followed him.

This little book offers us over 90 selections and a fare representation of his total body of work. The reader will find here both the familiar and the not so familiar; dished out without the music so that the words can be savored on their own merit. It will surprise many readers, especially the young, at just how many of these songs have embedded themselves into our American; indeed, our Western Culture and psyche. After the loss of his right leg in 1958, Cole never wrote another song. He died in 1964 at the age of 73. Despite this we have artists such as U2, Deborah Harry, David Byrne and Annie Lenox along with those such as Robbie William, Sheryl Crow and Diana Krall who still have recorded his music. To be honest, if you listen closely to the score of many contemporary films, you will find Cole's finger prints all over them.

Cole led a rather fascinating life and left us a wonderful legacy via his music. His range was tremendous and his knowledge of the world and the general human condition was deep. Do yourself a real favor and get a copy of this work and set back for a few evenings and just enjoy. Not only will you be fed a wonderful dose of your musical heritage, but you will most certainly see friends, acquaintances and probably yourself peeking at you from his words.

This is a wonderful series of books and I do recommend each and every one of them. Had I the money, I would love to own them all as each and every one of them deserves multiple readings.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pass Another Helping of Porter, Please!, August 23, 2006

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Norma J. Shattuck "JaneBrain" (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics (American Poets Project) (Hardcover)

As a child and beyond, I soaked up pop song lyrics that have remained cruelly fixed in memory and apparently ineradicable. Too often (and mysteriously) some snatch of what is most often retro and regrettable will surface. This can be highly annoying, as will be clear to those who've heard one of those appalling 1950s clunkers like "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" and finds that it periodically and mysteriously lays siege to their consciousness. Such bizarre "Many Splendored" lyrics as, "Then your fingers touched my silent heart and taught it how to sing" may then infest one's head for days.


I thought of this assault-by-heard-music syndrome when I began to look
into "Cole Porter, selected lyrics" - compiled by Editor Robert Kimball as a 21st-century salute to the astonishingly prolific master of both music and lyrics who died in 1964 at 73. He was witty, worldly, and a magician capable of amazing feats of legerdemain, not with wand but with words and music. Why, then, hadn't even one from the rich trove of Porter compositions - uber-sophisticated, sly, knowing - wedged itself within my brain?

I'd welcome being haunted, for example, by a Porter confection such as "Why Don't We Try Staying Home?" with its gently coaxing refrain, "What if we threw a party or two, And asked only you and me?" Or the get-on-with-life-after-loss lyrics of "It's All Right With Me": "You can't know how happy I am that we met/ I'm strangely attracted to you/ There's someone I'm trying so hard to forget/ Don't you want to forget someone too?"

The only frustration of this slender volume (one in the series sponsored by the "American Poets Project") is that it is slender! Some 800 of his compositions survive, it's said. I say, "Bring on more Porter!"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good little book makes you want more...., April 5, 2011

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Dan Sherman (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cole Porter: Selected Lyrics (American Poets Project) (Hardcover)

This book offers a very good selection of Porter lyrics but made me want to look more both at Porter's lyrics and those of Ira Gershwin and other lyricists. There is a good "Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter" but also the excellent book "Reading Lyrics" that covers a number of lyricists, and gives (no surprise here) very good coverage to Porter, with overlap of perhaps 20 sets of lyrics with this volume A reader might want to start with "Reading Lyrics" first to see it how much interest he or she has in Porter and then move to this volume or perhaps (even better) the "Complete Lyrics." What amazes me about Porter (along with Sondheim) is that he composed some great music to go with his lyrics.