Where are we going again?
The Handbasket » Posts for tag 'gertrude lawrence'

The Physician – Cole Porter Click Here To Comment!

Every so often, I’ll get an e-mail that goes something like this:

I have it in my head that Julie Andrews sang a crazy song about a doctor who loved every
obscure part of her body “but he never loved me”. Am I wrong? If not what is the song?

Love j

Oh, the burden of knowing more than I should about Julie Andrews … ok, yes, she sang this Cole Porter song, a very cute one, in the movie Star! This is a bio-pic about a stage diva named Gertrude Lawrence, a friend and cohort of Noel Coward who was insanely popular in throughout the mid-twentieth century. In truth, Gertrude Lawrence paved the way for modern-day Britney Spears and J Lo and others of that ilk. Talented, high-strung, terrible with financial matters, and quite enamoured with her own mythology. The movie was too long and badly timed in the marketplace, released when big budget musicals were no longer popular.

The song lyrics appear below, and here is a YouTube clip of the very scene and Jools herself singing this song.

Verse

Once I loved such a shattering physician,
Quite the best-looking doctor in the state.
He looked after my physical condition,
And his bedside manner was great.
When I’d gaze up and see him there above me,
Looking less like a doctor than a Turk,
I was tempted to whisper, “Do you love me,
Or do you merely love your work?”

Refrain 1

He said my bronchial tubes were entrancing,
My epiglottis filled him with glee,
He simply loved my larynx
And went wild about my pharynx,
But he never said he loved me.
He said my epidermis was darling,
And found my blood as blue as could be,
He went through wild ecstatics,
When I showed him my lymphatics,
But he never said he loved me.

And though, no doubt,
It was not very smart of me,
I kept on a-wracking my soul
To figure out
Why he loved ev’ry part of me,
And yet not me as a whole.
With my esophagus he was ravished,
Enthusiastic to a degree,
He said ’twas just enormous,
My appendix vermiformis,
But he never said he loved me.

Refrain 2

He said my cerebellum was brilliant,
And my cerebrum far from N.G.,
I know he thought a lotta
My medulla oblongata,
But he never said he loved me.
He said my maxillaries were marvels,
And found my sternum stunning to see,
He did a double hurdle
When I shook my pelvic girdle,
But he never said he loved me.

He seemed amused
When he first made a test of me
To further his medical art,
Yet he refused
When he’d fix up the rest of me,
To cure that ache in my heart.
I know he thought my pancreas perfect,
And for my spleen was keen as could be,
He said of all his sweeties,
I’d the sweetest diabetes,
But he never said he loved me.

Refrain 3

He said my vertebrae were “sehr schone,”
And called my coccyx “plus que gentil,”
He murmured “molto bella,”
When I sat on his patella,
But he never said he loved me.

He took a fleeting look at my thorax,
And started singing slightly off key,
He cried, “May Heaven strike us,”
When I played my umbilicus,
But he never said he loved me.

As it was dark,
I suggested we walk about
Before he returned to his post.
Once in the park, I induced him to talk about
The thing I wanted the most.
He lingered on with me until morning,
Yet when I tried to pay him his fee,
He said, “Why, don’t be funny, It is I who owe you money,”
But he never said he loved me.

Top of page / Subscribe to new Entries (RSS)