The Genius at Work - Porter's Songs

At ten o'clock every evening, Cole Porter sat down to write a song!

He loved to set himself problems to solve, either in the music (keys, harmonies) or in the lyrics (rhymes, patterns, meters) to stop the songs from becoming too cliched or too similar.

He began by choosing a title, then he wrote the opening and ending of the song, then he filled in the middle. The lyrics he often wrote backwards, so, where there was a list of rhymes involved, the most obvious rhyme would be the last one - so ensuring a build up to the inevitable - a good climax.

Porter studied the latest slang, jokes, fashion and language in order to appeal to new audiences. He visited night clubs and swing sessions to pick up the newest styles of dance and band orchestrations to make his songs fit the bill, and even took a course in jazz before writing a solo for Louis Armstrong. All this was necessary because Porter was, deep down, a classical composer, both by intuition and by training, and this is the key to his style and the lasting beauty and complexity of his music.

Unusually, there are brilliant and well-loved songs that have stood the test of time from each decade of Porter's career - from 1910 to 1964. The songs grew richer and more daring in their use of harmony, chromaticism, major/minor shifts and complex rhythms, but always the words belong with the music and are expressed neatly and beautifully by it.

Porter was always true to his own high standards. If asked his opinion of a show or a song, he gave it - whoever had written the piece. He was respected and, surprisingly, well liked! He did not approve of the more obvious, crude lyrics of Irving Berlin (whose songs, particularly at parties, were often quite 'blue') - even though he was a close friend. Nor did he like the trite sentiments of Vincent Youmans (of "Tea for Two" fame) or the simple rhymes of Oscar Hammerstein II. He did, however, find a soul-mate in Lorenz Hart (who wrote with Richard Rodgers) and, much later on, in Stephen Sondheim.

Porter's songs are hard to sing. Many have disturbing depths of emotion, which popular singers could not - and cannot - cope with, preferring to deliver them in 'nice' upbeat versions. One notable example of this is "It's Alright with Me" (now included in High Society). Shortly after writing it, Porter sent a note to a friend to ask him to "scatter it among your dance orchestras, but don't let them play it too fast, as you should cry when you sing it". The song was not a hit, but when Lena Horne released an up tempo version, it soon topped the jukebox charts for 1953 along with a fast "I Love Paris" - Porter hated them! Porter once Eve sent Frank Sinatra a telegam to ask why he bothered singing his songs, if he didn't like the way they were written!

French words and phrases feature in many of Porter's songs - he lived much of his life in France. This caused problems for many singers and Cole would drill singers until they got accents right, spending 20 to 30 minutes on a single vowel sound to make sure it was correct.

He used to send pages of notes to performers and musical directors. "Please note" - he wrote of "Well, Did You Evah" - "the first two measures are legato, the second two measures are staccato and hot; the third two, legato; the fourth two, staccato and hot; continuing until measure 14 when all the notes are staccato except for slurs. This should be observed not only instrumentally, but vocally". Things had to be 'right' for Cole Porter!

Unlike most popular writers, Porter liked to score his own music for orchestra, rather than handing it over to an arranger. (The High Society score took him from July to November.)

Like all clarrical composers, he wrote at a desk, never at the piano. "When I write a song at the piano, it is always lousy."

He worked fast and to order: 'the sad part is that when I work on a song for a long time, I usually have to throw it away. I wrote about 35 songs for this show, and the ones that are in it now are the ones I did during rehearsals!'

On Porter's 69th birthday, Yale University honoured him with a doctorate and a tribute:

"Master of the deft phrase, the delectable rhymes, the distinctive melody, you are, in your own words, and your own field, the top - confident that your graceful, impudent, inimitable songs will be played and sung as long as footlights burn and curtains go up-"

-they are, and will be, because they are simply "sensational - that's all - that's all - that's all!"

(Click on the image to return to the High Society web page.)