“Night
and Day”
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performer:
Cole Porter
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performer:
Fred Astaire
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performer:
Ella Fitzgerald
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performer:
Mario Lanzo
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performer:
Frank Sinatra, 1957
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performer:
Frank Sinatra, 1962
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performers:
Gulda and Herbie Hancok, 1989
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performer:
Dionne Warwick, 1990
Composer:
Cole Porter
Performers:
John Barrowman and Kevin Kline, 2004
Perhaps one of the most difficult songs for performers to sing is Cole Porter’s song from his stage musical of 1932, Gay Divorce, which originally starred Fred Astaire, this time on Broadway, performing a work which is also one of the most remarkable songs ever composed for the musical theater. As John Barrowman reports in the film musical version in De-Lovely, an underrated film about Porter, “the song goes so high and so long, it’s impossible to sing.” In fact, the tune begins in a strange seventh cord, leading to an F of the major 7th harmonic, and resolving into a B major 7th. The ranges of this song make it nearly impossible for most male singers to transform from baritone to tenor on a moment’s notice and are equally challenging for female singers who must quickly move from alto to soprano.
In short, it’s a nearly an impossible song
to sing. Astaire, who was the original performer, sings it at an incredibly high, nearly alto pitch, not so very musically effective, although his usual
ability to get to the heart of the song through his marvelous enunciations is
remarkable. He is certainly one of the song’s best performers.
Given the numerous heterosexual performers
who have made this song central to their oeuvre, it is quite incredible,
particularly as represented in the De-Lovely performance, of just how sincerely gay this song is. Perhaps there
is no melody and lyric that more expresses the madness of gay intensity, the
sudden attraction of another and the ache of that being for endless sex. Surely
this is part of the heterosexual world as well, but the madness of that male on
male ferocity has never been made clearer than in Porter’s provocative lyrics:
Like
the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom
When
the jungle shadows fall
Like
the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
As
it stands against the wall
Like
the drip, drip drip of the rain drops
When
the summer showers through
A
voice within me keeps repeating
You,
you, you
Night
and day you are the one
Only
you beneath the moon or under the sun
Whether
near to me or far it's no matter darling
Where
you are
When
the jungle shadows fall
Like
the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock
As
it stands against the wall
Like
the drip, drip drip of the rain drops
When
the summer showers through
A
voice within me keeps repeating
You,
you, you
Night
and day you are the one
Only
you beneath the moon or under the sun
Whether
near to me or far it's no matter darling
Where
you are
I
think of you
This
is a song of cruising, of exciting nights out when you simply can’t refuse your
sexual desires.
It’s rather strange, accordingly, when you
think back on it, that this number was one of the major works in Frank Sinatra’s
repertoire, and he recorded it several times over the years, as did the
operatic singer, Mario Lanza. So too did major women performers, most notably
Ella Fitzgerald and Dionne Warwick, with rather amazing results. My favorites,
other than the so memorable Barrowman/Kline encounter, were jazz renditions
such as Gulda’s and Herbie Hancock’s 1989 version and the amazing 2017 version
by Diana Krall.
It’s only on hearing this song perhaps a
dozen or more times that you realize just how powerful its incessant “tom-tom”
beats, its “drip, drip, drip,” and “tick, tick tock” lyrics make it so truly compelling
that you might never get it out of your head. This is the compulsion of a gay man
in search of his would-be lover. The song bores into the memory, and won’t allow
you to forget the love of the singer/and or composer for whoever is the lover.
Love, in this song, is truly obsessive, with no way out, nor possibility of
escape, for either of the parties. It is a madness for the other: “you, you,
you,” and neither the lover nor its object can possibly escape its impact. The
greatness of this song is about compulsion, and there has never quite been a
song so intense in its expression of that emotion.
Los Angeles, April
10, 2018
Reprinted
from USTheater, Opera, and Performance, (April
2018).
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