Cole Porter

Can-Can was the last big hit of Cole Porter's career. It opened in New York in 1953 and ran for 892 performances. It was turned into a movie musical in 1960 starring Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine. It boasts three great songs: "I Am in Love," "It's All Right With Me," and "I Love Paris." But while Porter was working on the score in 1953, his mother died. The next year, his wife died. Two years later, one of Porter's legs had to be amputated. Porter's career was over. He died in 1964. Porter was long familiar with Paris when he came to write Can-Can and "I Love Paris" is as much a meteorological survey of the city as a love song. Indeed, the low-lying melody of the verses is dark and overcast in the tonic minor and the singer's assertion that he loves Paris seems untenable at best. But with the turn to a long-breathed melody in the tonic major in the chorus, the singer's claim is validated because whatever Paris' climate, that's where his love is and that more than compensates for inclement weather.