Cole Porter Redivivus

FOR SOMEONE who used to be Dean Acheson's roommate, Cole Porter has come a long way. In the Grand tradition of hula hoops, the Twist, and Batman, he has become a raging American fad, and, although the Porter fad will probably wear out its welcome with the great American populace as quickly as its predecessors, we may as well drink the wine while we have it, Nunc est bibendum.

The sheer pretension of the man! The bravado of his lyric, the daring of his melodies. Porter's talent knew no bounds, his wit knew no shame. He was an egregious anachronism. No, not that either, for it is hard to think of any time when he might have been completely at home, totally at ease. This man who made Scott Fitzgerald look like Jonathan Edwards lived in an age and a world unto himself.

But what lyrics. "Were Thine that Special Face"; "Katie Went to Haiti", "Too Darn Hot". Porter raced between the ever-so-artfully ridiculous:

Just declaim a few lines from Otheller

And they'll think you're a hell of a feller....

With the wife of the British Ambassader

Try a crack out of Trollus and Cressider.... and the almost sublime:

Our little love affair

Will make us cease to care

How many parties they're giving.

We're done with being smart and so we're going to start

To learn the gentle art of living.

There was a distinct Porter style, of course, but Porter could never be counted on to stick to it. The same Cole Porter wrote "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Don't Fence Me In", about as dissimilar as two songs can be. This was the same Cole Porter also, who wrote the eerie, macabre. yet somehow awfully touching "Miss Otis Regrets"

The crowd came today and dragged her from the jail, Madame:

They strung her up on the old willow across the way:

And the moment before she died.

She lifted up her lovely head and cried. Madame.

"Miss Otis Regrets she's unable to lunch today."

Porter was a cynic at heart, a believer in the good life who didn't find it all that good, but still preferred it to anything conventional:

The marriage game is quite all right.

Yes, during the day it's easy to play.

But oh, what a bore at night!

His cynicism grew tempered as he grew older. He seemed to yearn for the quiet Midwestern life he had rejected, to want to roll back the years to a more peaceful age--"Wouldn't it be nice not to be famous?" one of his later songs asks, and you hear the voice of the composer behind the question. But the same man who wrote "I'm in love again, and I love, love, love it" also wrote:

Goodbye, dear, and amen.

Here's hoping we meet now and then

It was great fun, but it was just

One of those things.

This cavalier dismissal of love was typical of the man: he refused to take love seriously, life seriously, himself seriously. He felt life as deeply as any other modern poet, but forced life to meet him on his own terms. Here was his strength, yes, but here also was his weakness.

BRENDAN GILL describes Porter's life and times in the introduction to George Kimball's anthology Cole (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston: more money than you'd care to think about). Gill gives us the old, familiar story: the debonair roue, writing At Long Last Love between swoons into unconsciousness while lying pinned under his horse with both legs broken, tiring the second half of his life in agony after the accident. The midwestern kid who made good; the character like Auntie Mame or his own Katie who came east and set the town on its ear, the country on its ear, the world on its ear. But the shocking debauche would do facile little runs around his own end, drop back, and make fun of himself and his own people. Witness the mock horror of one of his classic songs:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking.

But now god knows, anything goes!

Good authors, too, who once knew better words.

Now only use four letter words.

Writing prose, anything goes.

When every night the set that's smart is in-dulging

In nudist parties in studios.

Anything goes.

As the troubador of the smart set. Porter was perfectly willing to mock himself as much as anyone else. Cole contains a fine selection of Porter's lyrics, and some notes on the real Cole Porter. For a coffee table book, it is well worth having.

The other great symptom of the Porter epidemic is an absolutely dazzling two-record set. "Bobby Short Loves Cole Porter", (Atlantic Records). Bobby Short is an old New York night club singer, who has been doing a one man Porter review for over a year now. He's the top. He's the Colosseum. He's the top.

Short has dug up a number of previously unrecorded Porter songs from some deep, dark vault in the Yale University Archives, to which the Old Blue left many of his papers when he died. This record contributes a great deal to our knowledge of Porter, dredging up songs which reveal a characteristic Porter flair, singing them as Porter himself would have. Short is a performer of great talent, both as a vocalist and as pianist. His two record set may be the finest tribute to Porter's talent yet produced.

The Porter fad, like all good things, will come to an end in a while. Some other neglected songwriter, performer, or film star will replace him ast he culture hero of the hour. But, while he is around, enjoy him.