Cole Porter wrote “So in Love” for his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate. It came at a time when many people thought he had started to lose his touch.

Porter was born in Peru, Indiana in 1891. His mother was the strong-willed daughter of the wealthiest man in town. Young Cole began his study of the violin at six and piano at eight. He started to compose music at ten.

His mother recognized his talent and determined to help him become a famous musician. When he was 14, she sent him to study music at the Worcester Academy in Massachusetts. Except she falsified his birth records, thinking his accomplishments would seem more impressive in a boy of, apparently, 12.

When Porter graduated from Worcester, he enrolled at Yale as an English major and music minor. He sang solos with the Yale Glee Club and wrote some 300 songs, including six full-scale musical comedies. Some of them enjoyed nationwide tours. His musical activities provided him with an active social life. His study of both literature and music enabled him to write both words and music for all his songs. He never had a collaborator.

At his grandfather’s insistence, he then started law school at Harvard. But with his mother’s blessing and behind his grandfather’s back, he left the law school to earn a master’s in music.

Conquering Broadway, eventually

After his first attempt at a Broadway show flopped in  1916, Porter moved to Paris. His social life continued to be more important and fruitful than whatever else he did there, although he continued his classical music training under Vincent d’Indy. He became close friends with another wealthy American expatriate named Linda Lee Thomas. They married in 1919.

He still had his sights on Broadway, but producers there took no interest in his work until Irving Berlin recommended him to one. Porter wrote five songs for a show called Paris, including “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love),” which became his first hit song.

The other producers noticed, and Porter finally launched his Broadway career. He produced a string of successful shows and hit songs.

Most of the composers who dominated American popular song in the first half of the twentieth century were Jewish. Many had immigrated. Porter, an Episcopalian born and raised in Indiana, didn’t fit the mold. Well before he became famous, Porter told Richard Rogers his plan to be a successful song writer: “I will write Jewish tunes.”

The Porters divided their time between New York and Hollywood and continued with their lavish social life. But then, in 1937, the horse he was riding slipped and fell on him, crushing both his legs. He lived the rest of his life in severe pain.

For a while, Porter’s career seemed as crippled as his legs. His style never really developed. It’s hard to tell much difference between his earliest hits and his later work. For whatever reason, after the accident, he continued to write as many songs and mount as many musicals as before. They were just less successful, with fewer hits.

Until Kiss Me, Kate in 1948.

Kiss Me, Kate

The history of Kiss Me, Kate began when the stage manager for a production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew overheard the two stars arguing backstage. He thought a play within a play, with a divorced couple quarrelling offstage as they starred in Shakespeare’s play, would make good theater.

He and a colleague asked Bella Spewack, a well-known playwright, to write it. She first turned them down, calling The Taming of the Shrew “a lousy play.” She finally agreed, but only if Cole Porter wrote the music.

At that time, Porter hadn’t had a hit in three years, but not for lack of trying. Many people regarded him as a has been. When Spewack approached Porter, he initially shied away but agreed to read her libretto. He loved it. Then the two of them had trouble finding backers willing to work with the two young and inexperienced producers.

Despite all these difficulties, Kiss Me, Kate became a hit beyond anything Porter had ever done. It ran for more than a thousand performances and earned two Tony Awards. It contains so many wonderful songs that Spewack had to ask him not to write any more.

The story

In Kiss Me, Kate, the egotistical Fred Graham directs The Taming of the Shrew and stars as Petruchio. Somehow, he has engaged his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi to play opposite him as Kate. The two find plenty to argue about behind the scenes, not the least of which is that Frank is openly wooing Lois Lane, the actress who plays Bianca. Lilli, however, can taunt Fred with her own engagement to another man.

Lilli receives some flowers from Fred, not knowing that he had really sent them to Lois. In response, she sings “So in Love.”

Of course, she couldn’t let Fred know that in person. The bickering continues, but Fred, too, still has feelings for Lilli. When she threatens to walk off the show, he sings the song back to her. She storms off anyway.

In the last scene, the cast is trying to present the finale of Shakespeare’s play without her, but she comes back just in time for Kate’s last speech. The audience for Kiss Me, Kate recognizes that the Fred and Lilli have reconciled.

In Shakespeare, Petruchio “tames” an unwilling Kate. In Kiss Me, Kate, Lilli appears to have tamed Fred.

“So in Love”

The typical song of the Tin Pan Alley era comprised four verses of eight measures each. The first two and the last had the same music. The third, often called the bridge, contrasted in melody, harmony, and rhythm. In a way, it’s analogous to how classical composers used sonata formand other standard structures. In both cases, unimaginative composers treated the forms as molds to pour music into. The geniuses always came up with fresh ways to introduce subtleties and surprises into their music.

Tin Pan Alley composers had numerous ways to turn the standard 32-measure form into something a little different. Each verse could have more or fewer syllables than usual. Or a composer could repeat the bridge and last verse, sometimes with different words. Or add a third contrasting section.

In “So in Love,” Porter doesn’t repeat the same music in all the A sections. In each one, the top note is higher than the previous one. That forces the rest of the melody to find a different way to the end of the verse. The effect of the last A section resembles Robert Schumann’s “Ich grolle nicht” too much for coincidence. Porter never made a big deal of his classical training, but he relied on it frequently.

As the song progresses, Lilli’s sense of sorrowful resignation to unrequited love develops. The lyrics, particularly the last verse, expose the emotional nakedness of her vulnerability.

Strange, dear, but true, dear,
When I’m close to you dear,
The stars fill the sky,
So in love with you am I.

Even without you
My arms fold about you.
You know, darling, why,
So in love with you am I.

In love with the night mysterious
The night when you first were there
In love with my joy delirious
When I knew that you could care.

So taunt me and hurt me,
Deceive me, desert me,
I’m yours ‘til I die,
So in love, So in love
So in love with you, my love, am I.

Sources:

America’s Songs / by Philip Furia and Michael Lasser (2006)
Cole Porter / Song Writer’s Hall of Fame https://www.songhall.org/profile/Cole_Porter

Photo credits:
Cole Porter. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Broadway. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Scene from Kiss Me, Kate. Public domain from
Taming of the Shrew. Public domain from
Patricia Morison. Public domain from