Greatest Love Songs Ever: #13 “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
By Tom Quiner, Board President, Pulse Life Advocates
Out of all the songs on this list of the 52 Greatest Love Songs Ever, Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” may be the one I’ve listened to the most.
It started with Sinatra’s extraordinary live performances, which always brought out the best in him. And Nelson Riddle’s arrangement is his finest piece of work.
But then Diana Krall recorded it in a style exactly OPPOSITE Sinatra’s. Ol’ Blue Eye’s style swings; Krall’s crawls. She sings it as a tender, introspective love song with a nuanced arrangement by the great Johnny Mandel.
I can’t stop listening to either version. Which do you like best? I can’t answer the question, so you decide. Sinatra expresses Porter’s lyrics with utter brashness; Krall with quiet assurance.
Same song, two very unique works of art.
Porter wrote the song for the musical movie “Born to Dance” in 1936. He mastered the art of writing catchy love songs without using the word ‘love.’ In an earlier entry to this list, he expresses love as, “I get a kick out of you.” This go ‘round, it’s “I’ve got you under my skin.”
Personally, my two favorite versions of the song are both live performances. Sinatra’s comeback concert, “The Main Event,” was broadcast live on national television in 1974 after his three year retirement. It featured an exceptionally energized Sinatra at his best, performing to a celebrity audience at a packed Madison Square Garden. Here’s the entire concert. Go to the 15:11 mark for “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
Or take a listen at the top of the page of ‘Ol Blue Eye’s performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
Sinatra’s 1974Main Event Concert at Madison Square Garden
Diana Krall’s 2001 live performance in Paris features a jazzy rendition that simply smolders with understated passion.
Sinatra utilizes a big band which includes a string section. Krall uses a jazz combo backed with strings.
Sinatra deserves a lot of credit in this regard. Early in his career, he recognized the classic songs in the ‘Great American Songbook’ were unique works of art, deserving the same treatment as Ravel, Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky. In other words, the singer should be backed by a full symphony orchestra. He became the first major artist to perform popular music backed by a full symphony orchestra in his performances at the Hollywood Bowl in the 1940s.
A full orchestra provides top arrangers like Nelson Riddle and Johnny Mandel a wealth of tools to fully realize the power of the songs written by a Porter, Gershwin, or Berlin.
For those of you putting together a playlist from my list of the 52 Greatest Love Songs Ever, I encourage you to include both Sinatra’s and Krall’s version. Both are works of high art.
Diana Krall sings “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
Next week’s song is particularly meaningful to me, as it played an instrumental role in my courtship of my wife of forty-eight years. In the meantime, if you’re enjoying this series, take a minute to make a gift to Pulse Life Advocates and fund our pro-life educational outreach.
Love is the antidote to abortion. Spread the love!
