"I’VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN" (1936)

Before Cole Porter made "under my skin" the catch phrase for another one of his obsessional love songs, the expression commonly was used to describe an annoyance that was more than skin deep and couldn’t be easily brushed off. The obsessive persistence conveyed by the phrase may have been what inspired Porter to use it to describe a lover’s addiction to a love affair that "never will go so well" in one of his most popular songs, "I’ve Got You Under My Skin." The popularity of the song has caused the original meaning of the phrase to be pre-empted. In the Poets of Tin Pan Alley, Philip Furia noted how Porter lifted it from its "normal context of irritated exasperation" and gave it a "nonchalantly sensuous frame."
In 1935 Cole Porter moved to Hollywood to write his first complete film score for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Born to Dance, in which "I’ve Got You Under My Skin" was introduced. However, because of a disastrous first meeting with MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer, it almost didn’t happen. In his Porter biography, The Life that Late He Led, George Eells described that first meeting between Porter and Mayer in 1934 at a party given by composer Irving Berlin for Porter when he was visiting Hollywood: "When Mrs. Berlin brought over the legendary Louis B. Mayer, who was purported to be terror personified to those working in films, Cole burst out laughing, thinking he looked exactly like a shark. Mayer took umbrage at the reaction and informed him that MGM had got along without Cole Porter for years and would continue to do so. Cole stood his ground, and a few days after leaving Hollywood, he received a cable from Mayer offering him a job. He ignored it. This was followed by another and another until at last the offer became too attractive to resist. Cole wired acceptance to work on an original film musical." That film musical was Born to Dance and Porter received $75,000 for his work on the score.
Although Porter had to be coaxed to Hollywood, he quickly became enthusiastic about living there. When asked by a reporter how he liked it, he replied, "Hollywood? It’s rather like living on the moon, isn’t it?" His songwriting for the film industry made it easy for him to adjust to Hollywood and the songs he wrote for Born to Dance were more playful and free-spirited than the sophisticated material he wrote for Broadway. Eells’ book quoted excerpts from a detailed diary Porter kept while working on the score for Born to Dance that provides fascinating insights into how he developed the songs and cooperated with other members of the production team. When Porter was shown the script for the love scene that was to directly proceed "I’ve Got You Under My Skin," he wrote that he realized the song was "entirely unfitting," being much too romantic for the character who was to sing it. He replaced it with a song that became another jazz standard, "Easy to Love," sung by the male lead, Jimmy Stewart. "I’ve Got You Under My Skin," sung by female lead Virginia Bruce, was moved to a later scene in the film. When the score was complete, Porter was asked to perform it for the film producers, writers, and directors. He was uncomfortable performing it by himself, and wrote in his diary on May 19, 1936, "They all came to the house. I plied them with whiskies and sodas, and then played the entire score. Even if the score had been awful, none of them would have known it, as they all felt so well, but they left saying it was the greatest thing they had heard in years."
Born to Dance was instantly popular with the public and critics and became a box office success. The New York Times reviewer praised the music, "No fewer than seven Cole Porter compositions, most of them destined to a good measure of the ephemeral fame of modern song hits, punctuate the proceedings. According to this reviewer's eagerly attuned ear, "I've Got You Under My Skin," "Easy to Love" and "Hey Babe Hey" are due for top billing on the subway song sheets, while "Rap-Tap-Tap on Wood" and "Swinging the Jinx Away" should be items of importance for the swing set. "Rolling Home" is something choice for roysterers [revelers], and the film will probably be permitted to keep "Love Me, Love My Pekinese" for itself." Designed as a showpiece for musical numbers that featured Eleanor Powell’s dancing and Virginia Bruce and Frances Langford's singing, the film had an inconsequential plot that caused the same New York Times reviewer to write, "There is a story, too—something about sailors and girls—which very properly doesn't amount to much."
Even before the film was released in November of 1936, Porter knew he had a hit with "I’ve Got You Under My Skin." He wrote in a diary entry dated May 11, 1936, "…it was what is called in Hollywood "colossal." In his book American Popular Song, composer and author Alec Wilder agreed, even though Porter took risks with its melody and lyrics, and, unlike most songs of the time, it had no verse to set up the chorus. Wilder said, "It’s in beguine tempo and is fifty-six measures long. Its range is wide and it’s replete with repeated notes and eight measures of triplets, in other works, many things which I tend to shy away from. In this instance, though, I must waive all my prejudices, including such rhymes as "mentality" and "reality." For the song is so well composed and it develops in intensity and strength so remarkably as to demand acceptance. …It is a very dramatic, theatrical, unique song. The form is hard to describe in letters. Perhaps the best way would be to break it down into eight-measure phrases. Then it would be (Look out!) A-B-A1-B1-C-D-E/A1 . No, it’s not simple."
"I’ve Got You Under My Skin" is one of the most recorded of all Cole Porter songs. It immediately became the second most played song on the radio and it was recorded eight times in 1936. It reached the charts twice that year, first with an October recording by Hal Kemp and His Orchestra with vocalist Skinnay Ennis (#8) and again in December with Ray Noble and His Orchestra and vocalist Al Bowlly (#3). It charted again in 1952 with vocalist Stan Freberg (#11). Frank Sinatra covered it numerous times, beginning in 1946, but the recording on his 1956 album for Capitol Records, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, is considered his definitive version. Riddle did a big-band arrangement that built to successive crescendos, claiming that Maurice Revel’s "Bolero" had inspired him. The excitement generated by the arrangement caused Sinatra to include the song in most concerts and it became one of his signature tunes. Click here to hear his rendition of "I’ve Got You Under My Skin": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHLC-EimdAc In 1966 it was a Top 10 Hit for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. More recently, Diana Krall, the WICN Artist of the Month for June, covered the song in her 1999 platinum-selling album, When I Look into Your Eyes, and included it on her 2007 album, The Very Best of Diana Krall.