throughout the song. Sophie Tucker famously advised Mary Martin to deliver such sexy lines while looking towards heaven. Mary Martin's stage persona was quite innocent and so the contrast between her naive manner and the suggestive lyrics accompanied by her delivery (in one recording she inserts a significant pause in the middle of the word 'asking' in the above-quoted lyric) and the provocative striptease made her performance a huge success. Brooks Atkinson, the critic of the New York Times, wrote that Martin's "mock innocence makes My Heart Belongs to Daddy the bawdy ballad of the season". The original version contains four verses, all of which play on idiosyncratic rhymes with "daddy". The first refers to a game of golf during which she might "make a play for the caddy". The second is about the finnan haddie. The third tells of wearing green with a "Paddy" on St Patrick's day. The final verse is about a varsity football match where one might meet a "strong under-graddy". In the original version, she ends up saying that her daddy might "spank" her if she was "bad". Referring to the melody, especially the passage of "da da da da"s, Oscar Levant described it as "one of the most Yiddish tunes ever written" despite the fact that "Cole Porter's background was not Jewish." Lyrics critic Philip Furia replied that the essence of that bit of melody is to suggest that "Daddy" is Jewish. Notable recordings The 1938 version by bandleader Larry Clinton with singer Bea Wain was the most successful of the many contemporary recordings, entering the U.S. charts at the same time as Mary Martin's original cast recording but peaking at No. 4, compared to Martin's No. 7. The Count Basie Orchestra (1939) with Helen Humes on Decca Valaida Snow(1939) Eartha KittThat Bad Eartha (1953) Peggy LeeBlack Coffee (1953) Kitty KallenLittle Things Mean A Lot (1954) Ella FitzgeraldSongs in a Mellow Mood (1954) Dorothy Dandridge – CBS's “Ford Star Jubilee's tribute to Cole Porter" (1956) Pat Suzuki on her album Miss Pony Tail (1957). Anita O'DayCool Heat (1959) Dizzy GillespieHave Trumpet, Will Excite! (1959) Della ReeseDella Della Cha Cha Cha (1960) Marilyn MonroeLet's Make Love (1960). During her performance she wears a purple sweater over a black bodystocking. Near the end of the song, she takes off her sweater, revealing her bodystocking and a black bikini over it. Oscar PetersonNight Train (1962) Julie LondonAll