You Do Something to Me
"You Do Something to Me" is a song written by Cole Porter. It is notable in that it was the first number in Porter's first fully integrated-book musical Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929). In the original production, the song was performed by Genevieve Tobin and William Gaxton, performing the roles of Looloo Carroll and Peter Forbes, respectively.
The song has been revived and rerecorded many times since, notably by Howard McGillin and Susan Powell in 1991. There are two verses and two rounds of the chorus. The song has been described as "a tender prequel" to "Let's Do It, Let's Fall In Love," Porter's first popular song. The song has been recorded by artists including Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Doris Day, Susannah McCorkle, Bryan Ferry, Sinéad O'Connor on Red Hot + Blue (1990), and Skunk Anansie. Ella Fitzgerald, the First Lady of Song, recorded this song on both her Cole Porter Songbook albums and on her Pablo classic, Ella à Nice. Bing Crosby made a recording for radio, featured on the album "Bing Crosby CBS Radio Recordings 1954-56." Bette Midler's version of the song plays over the final credits of the 1991 film Scenes From A Mall starring Midler and Woody Allen.
According to the liner notes for It's De Lovely - The Authentic Cole Porter Collection, the line "the voodoo that you do so well" is quoted in the 1993 Salt-N-Pepa song "Shoop".[1]
The "voodoo" line is also quoted by Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) in the film Blazing Saddles as he exhorts his gang to attack a frontier town.
References
- ↑ Friedwald, Will (2004). Bluebird Presents: It's De Lovely - The Authentic Cole Porter Collection (liner notes). New York: BMG Music. p. 6."We don't even need the additional evidence of rock and country artists doing albums of standards that include Porter songs, or the recent rap hit "Shoop" which quotes the phrase "the voodoo that you do so well" from Porter's 1929 'You Do Something To Me.'"