You're the top!

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Bloomsday for Dummies

A skeleton key to "You're the Top."

By Timothy Noah

Posted Thursday, June 9, 2005, at 1:02 PM PT

Seven days until Bloomsday, and I still haven't read Ulysses! Every year I tell myself this is the year I'll celebrate Bloomsday as one of the Ulysses-reading elect. Every year I fail. This year, I've decided that instead of feeling bad that I can't celebrate Bloomsday, I will attempt to render Cole Porter's birthday, which falls exactly one week before—i.e., today—as a sort of Bloomsday for dummies. Happy 114th, Cole!

Instead of wrestling with Joyce's abstruse allusions to classical works and bodily functions, I propose that we dummies celebrate with a scholarly exploration of Porter's delightful word game of a song, "You're the Top." My 9-year-old daughter and I took in a production of Anything Goes last summer, and in listening to the song many times since, we've discovered that many of its topical witticisms have become, in the 71 years since its composition, obscure. "Daddy, who's Irene Bordoni?" Uh, I don't know. "A Bendel bonnet? A Brewster body?" No idea! But through the miracle of Google scholarship, I've managed to solve all but one of the song's many textual riddles. The exception is the phrase "drumstick lipstick."

If you happen to know what a "drumstick lipstick" is, e-mail me at chatterbox@slate.com. No guesses, please, and no regurgitations of the lame speculation offered by Harvard Magazine's "Chapter & Verse" column (see footnote 17).

And now, without further ado:

"You're the Top."

Words and music by Cole Porter, 1934. Annotations by Chatterbox, 2005.

Permission to reprint lyrics courtesy of the Cole Porter Trusts.

At words poetic, I'm so pathetic

That I always have found it best,

Instead of getting 'em off my chest,

To let 'em rest unexpressed.

I hate parading my serenading

As I'll probably miss a bar,

But if this ditty is not so pretty

At least it'll tell you

How great you are.

You're the top!

You're the Coliseum,

You're the top!

You're the Louvre Museum.

You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss

You're a Bendel bonneti,

A Shakespeare's sonnet,

You're Mickey Mouse.

You're the Nile,

You're the Tower of Pisa,

You're the smile on the Mona Lisa

I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,

But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top!

Your words poetic are not pathetic.

On the other hand, babe, you shine,

And I can feel after every line

A thrill divine

Down my spine.

Now gifted humans like Vincent Youmansii

Might think that your song is bad,

But I got a notion

I'll second the motion

And this is what I'm going to add;

You're the top!

You're Mahatma Gandhi.

You're the top!

You're Napoleon Brandy.

You're the purple light

Of a summer night in Spain,

You're the National Gallery

You're Garbo's salaryiii,

You're cellophaneiv.

You're sublime,

You're a turkey dinner,

You're the time of the Derby winner.

I'm a toy balloon that is fated soon to pop

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're a Ritz hot toddyv.

You're the top!

You're a Brewster bodyvi.

You're the boats that glide

On the sleepy Zuider Zeevii,

You're a Nathan panningviii,

You're Bishop Manningix,

You're broccoli!

You're a prize,

You're a night at Coney,

You're the eyes of Irene Bordonix.

I'm a broken doll,

A fol-de-rol, a blop,

But if, Baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're a dance in Bali.

You're the top!

You're a hot tamale.

You're an angel, you,

Simply too, too, too diveen,

You're a Boticcelli,

You're Keats,

You're Shelley,

You're Ovaltine.

You're a boon,

You're the dam at Boulderxi.

You're the moon,

Over Mae West's shoulder.

I'm the nominee of the G.O.P.xii

Or GOP!

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're an Arrow collarxiii.

You're the top!

You're a Coolidge dollar.

You're the nimble tread

Of the feet of Fred Astaire,

You're an O'Neill drama,

You're Whistler's mamaxiv,

You're Camembert.

You're a rose,

You're Inferno's Dante.

You're the nose

On the great Durante.

I'm just in the way,

As the French would say, "de trop."

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're the Towel of Babel,

You're the top

You're the Whitney stablexv

By the river Rhine you're a sturdy stein of beer.

You're a dress from Saks's,

You're next year's taxesxvi,

You're stratosphere!

You're my fuyst,

You're a drumstick lipstickxvii.

You're da foist

In da Irish svipstickxviii.

I'm a frightened frog that can find no log to hop

But if baby I'm the bottom

You're the top!

You're the top!

You're a Waldorf saladxix.

You're the top!

You're a Berlin ballad.

You're a baby grand

Of a lady and a gent.

You're an old Dutch master,

You're Mrs. Astorxx,

You're Pepsodent!

You're romance,

You're the steppes of Russia,

You're the pants

On a Roxyxxi usher.

I'm a lazy lout that's just about to stop

But if, baby, I'm the bottom,

You're the top!

iFashionable bonnet named for its designer, Henri Bendel (1868-1936).

iiAmerican musical-comedy composer (1898-1946), best known today for the songs "Tea For Two" and "More Than You Know."

iiiAfter the success of Flesh and the Devil (1927), Greta Garbo demanded that MGM raise her salary from $600 per week to $5,000 per week. Louis B. Mayer hemmed and hawed, so Garbo sailed to Sweden. Eventually Mayer gave in and Garbo sailed back. $5,000 per week comes to $260,000 per year, or the equivalent in today's dollars of $4.6 million per year.

ivInvented by Jacques E. Brandenberger, a Swiss textile engineer, in 1908; licensed to DuPont for North American distribution in 1923; rendered moisture-proof, and therefore suitable for packaging food, in 1927.

vHot water, brandy, sugar, lemon, and cinnamon sticks.

viStarting about 1900, Brewster & Co., a carriage-maker located on Long Island, began building exteriors ("bodies") for luxury automobiles.

viiAn inlet of the North Sea in the Netherlands. Created by a flood in 1287, it was sealed off from the North Sea (thereby rendered "sleepy"?) in 1932. Today much of it has been reclaimed for farmland and commercial use.

viiiThis one really had me stumped for awhile as I searched the Web in vain for a "Nathan Panning." Then I found a version of the lyrics in which the "P" was lowercase, and all became plain. "Panning" was a verb, not a surname! George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) was a famously severe theater critic for the New York Herald and Journal-American. Today he is best-remembered as co-editor (with H.L. Mencken) of the magazines Smart Set and American Mercury.

ixWilliam Thomas Manning (1866-1949) was the Episcopal bishop of New York state from 1921 to 1946.

xA seductive French-born musical-comedy actress. In Porter's 1928 musical, Paris, she sang "Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)," which was Porter's first hit song.

xiAn engineering marvel of the 1930s, located outside Las Vegas. In 1930, President Herbert Hoover had his interior secretary rename it "Hoover Dam" in order to boost his re-election chances in 1932; Hoover wanted to be associated with the 5,000 jobs created by the dam's construction. This crude political ploy didn't work, and in 1933 Hoover's successor, Franklin Roosevelt, had his interior secretary change the name back to Boulder Dam. In 1947, a briefly Republican Congress changed the name one last time, back to Hoover Dam.

xiiPorter here shows amazing prescience. Franklin Roosevelt, voted in two years earlier, would be elected to three additional terms, and the Democrats would dominate presidential politics through the late 1960s. (The only Republican elected president during these years was Dwight Eisenhower, whose warnings about the "military-industrial complex" would today make him too left-wing to win the Democratic nomination, let alone the Republican.)

xiiiA line of detachable men's collars best remembered for the fantastically successful advertising campaign used to market them. The "Arrow Collar man" represented a new and rapidly growing urbanized middle class.

xivAccording to some sources, these last two lines were originally, "You're Mussolini,/ You're Mrs. Sweeney." Presumably someone pointed out to Porter that it was morally repugnant to suggest that any comparison of one's beloved to a fascist dictator might constitute praise, however lighthearted. Also, the meter doesn't quite work. Mrs. Sweeney was Margaret Whigham, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993), a notorious society femme fatale and wife to golfer Charles Sweeney.

xvThe Whitney family had a thoroughbred stable that produced a remarkable string of winning racehorses. The site is now occupied by the architecture building of the New York Institute of Technology.

xviFaint praise, it seems to me. Presumably, next year's taxes are preferable to this year's taxes because you don't have to pay them until … next year.

xviiGoogle fails me here. Harvard Magazine took a (fairly unconvincing) whack at this puzzle in its "Chapter & Verse" column: "W. W. Rhodes suggests a possible derivation of this encomium, from Cole Porter's song 'You're the Top.' 'In the 1940s the "drumstick" was a well-known frozen confection: a rolled sugar cone filled with vanilla ice cream under a chocolate topping covered with minced peanuts. Its appearance thus resembled a chicken drumstick. Lipstick, when Anything Goes appeared, tasted mostly of the coal tar derivatives which provided the color. If the wearer of such lipstick ate a "drumstick" and shortly afterward enjoyed a kiss, imagine how surprisingly sweet that "drumstick lipstick" kiss would have been to the boyfriend concerned. Thus "drumstick lipstick," like the Eiffel Tower, the cocktail hour, and Mickey Mouse, is an example of the best in its class.' " Uh, whatever.

xviiiThe Irish Sweepstakes (formally the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes) began in 1930 and continues to this day, though in 1988 it was renamed the Irish Lottery.

xixA popular salad created in 1896 by the maitre d'hotel at the Waldorf-Astoria. Its principal ingredients were apples, celery, lettuce, and mayonnaise. Walnuts were added a few years later.

xxThe Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor (1879-1964), who became the first woman to serve in Parliament. An American, she married the great-great grandson of John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) America's first millionaire. (Astor's great-grandson had emigrated to Britain and essentially bought himself a peerage that he passed onto his son.) Mrs. Astor is said to have famously matched wits with Winston Churchill. She: "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee." He: "Up yours." No, actually, Churchill replied, "Madam, if I were your husband I'd drink it."

xxiA movie palace on W. 50th St., 1927-1960, famous for its opulent floor shows and for housing not one, not two, but three pipe organs. Roxy ushers dressed in quasi-military garb and participated in military-style drills.

[JSngry]

Just a guess, but could it be lipstick in a tube? Didn't lipstick used to not come in a tube and have to be applied by some other way than just drawing on the lips? I'd think that the ease of application afforded by the tube would be considered pretty snazzy if that was the case.

Now, what a tube of lipstick has to do with a drumstick, I don't know...

[Rosco]

Is Harvard's explanation really that lame? Watch any kid with an ice-cream/ frozen lolly and witness the stained lips that result. Surely 'drumstick lipstick' would an apt description?

Kudos on the rest of it... very thorough!

[mikeweil]

Was there a brand of lipstick called drumstick? Or one in that shape?

Otherwise, if it was Joyce, not Cole Porter, who wrote these lyrics, some strong sexual connotations could arise ...

[couw]

took me 30 seconds to find it on google groups:

"It's the name for a particular brand of lipstick, produced by the

French company Parfums Charbert and introduced in 1934 (and thus in the

air when the song was first performed). If you look at newspapers from

the mid-1930s, you can see ads for it."

ad here: http://www.mindspring.com/~cconnelly/drumstick.pdf

Edited June 10, 2005 by couw

[Dave James]

Porter was a lyrical genius in every sense of the word. No one has ever, or probably will ever, use language as cleverly and intelligently as he did in the context of popular entertainment.

Here's a little chestnut with regard to "Your're the Top". It was the B-side of Edd Byrne's single "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb." If I'm recalling correctly, he sang it as a duet with that one time blonde hottie, Connie Stevens. BTW, I do not believe "Kookie, Kookie" was written by Porter.

Up over and out.

[Kalo]

Nice annotations. I may be wrong, but I think he wrote even more lyrics than appear here.

I've been a Cole Porter fan since appearing in a high school production of Anything Goes way back when. He is arguably the greatest single-act in the Great American Songbook and definitely the cleverest (though I love both Irving Berlin and Frank Loesser, who also wrote both words and music). Especially warm feelings for this song, as I used it as an audition piece for years.

As for Ulysses, the only way to read it is to START this Bloomsday, then you might be finished by the next one. I've traversed the book twice, once in college, once a few years ago for my book group. The first time took most of a semester, the second time took six months. Very rewarding both times, though you have to be able to live with not understanding everything. I occasionally go back to favorite bits, and I hope to read it at least once more straight through.

It's easy to bog down, however, so I would recommend getting one of the many Ulysses guide books to read alongside it. First time, in college, our teacher assigned us Harry Blamires's The Bloomsday Book (since revised and now entitled The New Bloomsday Book), which is a running summary and very helpful. The second time through, I read Frank Budgen's The Making of Ulysses, which is a truly wonderful account of the writing of Ulysses written by a painter who was friend of Joyce's and with whom Joyce would often discuss his evolving book, artist to artist.

Edited June 10, 2005 by Kalo

[Jazzmoose]

Okay, now for shits and grins, write down Anita O'Day's version with the "you're the bop" section and hand it to a nonjazz fan. Let them puzzle a while...