Slate contributor Timothy Noah analyzes the classic Cole Porter tune "You're the Top." The song was a catalog of the top of 1930s pop culture, but Noah wonders whether the then-current references will leave contemporary listeners bewitched, bothered and bewildered.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: This is DAY TO DAY.  I'm Madeleine Brand.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: In a few minutes, we prowl the mean LA streets with one of the city's top      paparazzi photographers.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: But first, a piece of service journalism.  Timothy Noah is a columnist      for our online partner, Slate magazine.  He's just published a guide to a      song we've probably all heard, but maybe not really listened to, Cole      Porter's "You're the Top."</s>Mr. COLE PORTER (Songwriter): (Singing) You're the top, you're the      Colosseum, you're the top, you're the Louvre museum.</s>TIMOTHY NOAH reporting: That's Cole Porter himself singing the song.  It's a love song in which      the singer compares the object of his affection to a list of wonderful      things. But since it was written in 1934, a lot of the things Porter      thought were wonderful are now meaningless to most of us.  After hearing      the song, my nine-year-old daughter asked me what lines like this meant.</s>Mr. COLE PORTER (Songwriter): (Singing) You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet,      you're Mickey Mouse.</s>NOAH: A Shakespeare sonnet I can explain.  But a Bendel bonnet?  The      song's original lyric is filled with such dated references.  Thanks to      the miracle of Google scholarship, I discovered that a Bendel bonnet is      merely a fashionable bonnet named for its designer, Henri Bendel.  And      I've tracked down almost all the other obscure references as well.  So      without further adieu, here is an annotated guide to Cole Porter's      "You're the Top."</s>Mr. COLE PORTER (Songwriter): (Singing) You're the National Gallery, you're Garbo's      salary...</s>NOAH: After the success of "Flesh and the Devil," Greta Garbo demanded      that MGM raise her salary from $600 a week to $5,000 per week.  Louis B.      Mayer hemmed and hawed, so Garbo sailed to Sweden.  Eventually, Mayer      gave in, and Garbo sailed back.  Five thousand dollars per week comes to      $260,000 per year, or the equivalent in today's dollars of $4.6 million      per year.</s>Mr. COLE PORTER (Songwriter): (Singing) You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad.  You're      the top, you're a Berlin ballad...</s>NOAH: Irving, of course.</s>Mr. COLE PORTER (Songwriter): You're the baby grand of a lady and a gent.  You're an old      Dutch master, you're Mrs. Astor, you're...</s>NOAH: Mrs. Astor is the viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, who      became the first woman to serve in the British Parliament.  An American,      she married the great-great-grandson of John Jacob Astor, America's first      millionaire. Astor's great-grandson had emigrated to Britain and      essentially bought himself a peerage that he passed on to his son.  Mrs.      Astor famously matched wits with Winston Churchill.  She said, `Winston,      if I were your wife, I'd put poison in your coffee.'  Churchill replied,      `Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.'</s>Mr. COLE PORTER (Songwriter): (Singing) You're romance, you're the steppes of Russia.      You're the pants on a Roxy usher.</s>NOAH: The pants on a Roxy usher; the Roxy was a Manhattan movie palace      famous for its opulent floor shows and for housing not one, not two, but      three pipe organs.  Roxy ushers dressed in quasi-military garb and      participated in military-style drills.</s>Mr. COLE PORTER (Songwriter): (Singing) But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top.</s>NOAH: Now there are a few lyrics so obscure they didn't even appear in      the recordings we could find, but here are a few.</s>NOAH: You're a Brewster body.  That's a luxury car body built by the      carriage maker Brewster.  You're a Nathan panning.  This one really had      me stumped for a while as I searched the Web in vain for somebody Nathan      Panning with a capital P.  Then I would a version of the lyrics in which      the P was lowercase. And, eureka, it all became plain.  Panning was a      verb, not a surname.  George Jean Nathan was a famously severe theater      critic for the New York Herald and Journal-American, and his pans really      scorched.</s>NOAH: You're the dam at Boulder.  In 1930, President Herbert Hoover had his      Interior secretary rename Boulder Dam in Nevada as Hoover Dam to boost      his re-election chances in 1932.  This crude political ploy didn't work      and in 1933 Hoover's successor, Franklin Roosevelt, had his Interior      secretary change the name back to Boulder Dam.  In 1947, a briefly      Republican Congress changed the name one last time back to Hoover Dam.</s>NOAH: And there's only one lyric for which I could find no good explanation.      It goes. `You're a drumstick lipstick.'  If you know for sure what that      means, you'll find my e-mail address and a complete list of annotations      at slate.com. In the meantime, happy 114th birthday, Cole.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Timothy Noah is a columnist for our partners at the online      magazine Slate.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: More coming up on DAY TO DAY from NPR News.