What I Learned About Writing from Cole Porter

Annamaria on Monday

When you read this, I will be in Cuba, where--I am told--I may be able to pick up emails once a day, if the power doesn't go out.  I am leaving you with one of my favorite topics: the ABSOLUTE brilliance of Cole Porter when it come to using our language.  Here is a rerun of a post from my past.  Please leave your comments, but forgive me if I cannot respond until I get home next Friday.  Then I'll be able to show where I've been.  

Having been brought up on a heavy diet of Verdi and Puccini and the music of the great American songbook, I hadn't a chance.  It was a foregone conclusion that the romantic and rhythm centers of my brain would be highly developed (in the case of the romantic part, undoubtedly overdeveloped!)  These things certainly affect the kinds of stories I write and how I strive (but with only intermittent success) to write them really well.

While listening to a Cole Porter song recently, I realized that Cole has set a high standard of how to tell a story.  We can learn a lot from him.  The song that brought this to mind is “Down in the Depths.”   Read the lyrics first; then we’ll talk:

“Down In The Depths" by Cole Porter

With a million neon rainbows burning below me,
And a million blazing taxis raising a roar,
Here I sit, above the town,
In my pet-paillated gown,
Down in the depths
Of the ninetieth floor.
While the crowds in all the nightclubs punish the parquet,
And the bars are packed with couples calling for more,
I'm deserted and depressed
In my regal-eagle nest,
Down in the depths
Of the ninetieth floor.
When the only one you wanted wants another,
What's the use of swank and cash in the bank galore?
Why, even the janitor's wife
Has a perfectly good love life,
And here I am, facing tomorrow,
Alone in my sorrow,
Down in the depths
Of the ninetieth floor

Without the repeats of the refrain, there are just 102 words.  Yet look how much Cole tells us about his song's character.  And he does it without ever describing her from the outside.  Every piece of information comes from her thoughts, her hurt.  The vivid pictures we see are in her imagination, born of her grief.  The words are gorgeous, and though they evoke the era when Cole wrote them, they still communicate today.  In fact, they come to us twenty-first-century listeners with a sheen of elegance gone by, and for me anyway, that intensifies the woman’s plight.

Notice the verbs.  They marvel.  Neon rainbows  “burning.”  He could have said “glowing.”  But that would not have spoken of pain.  Likewise, the crowds in the nightspots are not merely “dancing,” a word that would have lightened the tone.   These denizens of the dance club “punish” the parquet.

Even Cole’s nouns work wonders.  His character may own a Matisse or a Picasso, but her once-prized possessions are nothing but “swank” to this millionairess who envies, not just other women, but “the janitor’s wife.”  

All this within the constraints of a killer rhyme scheme.

Listen to rhythm of the words.  You don’t need to hear the melody to feel it, to have it enhance your emotional response.

Speaking of melody, that too came out of Cole’s heart and mind.   Here it is:

[A note about this music video: It is the best rendition on YouTube.  There are many, but the others play games with the original lyrics as the performers try to put their own stamp on the song.  Stamps that I think should be cancelled!  It also does something almost every singer does with this song--changes "OF the ninetieth..." to "ON the ninetieth..." which spoils Porter's bitter joke.  Other than that, the version I am posting sounds good and true, but its director betrayed the singer by having her make silly faces when she sang.  So close your eyes as you listen and conjure your own visuals of neon rainbows and elegantly shod feet dancing a bit too frantically on the floor at El Morocco.]

I have no delusions that I could ever follow Cole’s example.  But he sure demonstrates how it is done in the hands of a master and gives us a pinnacle to shoot for.