Kiss me Kate – Too Darn Hot

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Too Darn Hot” is a song written by Cole Porter for his musical Kiss Me, Kate (1948). In the stage version, it is sung at the start of Act 2, and in the 1948 original Broadway production, it was sung by Lorenzo Fuller (as Paul) and Eddie Sledge and Fred Davis (as the specialty dancers), leading the full company.

In the 1953 MGM Hollywood film version, it is moved to a much earlier point, and it is sung by Ann Miller (as Lois Lane, Fred’s new girlfriend, who is cast as Bianca). The song does not contribute to the plot in either the stage or film versions (according to general opinion); in the stage version, the song represents the company of The Taming of the Shrew taking a break offstage during the intermission of their play; in the film version it allowed the audience to see Lois’s fun-loving, risk-taking nature, and gave Ann Miller a chance to show off her dancing skills, specifically tap. The line ‘According to the Kinsey report’ (in the original stage production) was changed in the film version to ‘According to the latest report’. The song has also been covered by many artists.

Ella Fitzgerald – “Someone to Watch Over Me”

Accept no imitations.

Initially, “Someone to Watch Over Me” was written by George Gershwin for the musical Oh, Kay! as a “fast and jazzy” up-tempo rhythm tune – marked scherzando (playful) in the sheet music – but in the 1930s and 1940s it was recorded by singers in a slower ballad form, which became the standard. The definitive slow torch song version was first released by Lee Wiley in 1939, followed by Margaret Whiting in 1944.

More than 1,800 recordings of the song have been released, almost all of them in the slow ballad style.