"I Get a Kick out of You" is a song by Cole Porter, which was first sung in the 1934 Broadway musical Anything Goes, and then in the 1936 film version. Originally sung by Ethel Merman, it has been covered by dozens of prominent performers, including Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. A cover in 1995 won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement with Accompanying Vocal(s) for arranger Rob McConnell.
Alterations to the song
The lyrics were first altered shortly after being written. The last verse originally went as follows:
I get no kick in a plane I shouldn't care for those nights in the air That the fair Mrs. Lindbergh goes through But I get a kick out of you.After the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping, Porter changed the second and third lines to:
Flying too high with some guy in the sky Is my idea of nothing to doIn the 1936 movie version, alternative lyrics in the second verse were provided to replace a reference to the drug cocaine, which was not allowed by Hollywood's Production Code of 1934.
The original verse goes as follows:
Some get a kick from cocaine I'm sure that if I took even one sniff That would bore me terrif ically, too Yet, I get a kick out of youPorter changed the first line to:
Some like the perfume in SpainSinatra recorded both pre-Code and post-Code versions (with and without the cocaine reference): the first in 1953 and the second in 1962. On a recording live in Paris in 1962, Sinatra sings the altered version with the first line as "Some like the perfume from Spain". Other Porter-approved substitutions include "whiff of Guerlain." There is also a version with the "Some like the bop-type refrain" on Sinatra and Swingin' Brass.
All three of the above alternatives are mentioned in the liner notes to Joan Morris and William Bolcom's CD, Night and Day; on the recording, Morris sings the original second verse.