Miss Otis regrets
she is … is unable to
lunch today, madam
According to Wikipedia, Miss Otis Regrets is “a song about the lynching of a society woman after she murders her unfaithful lover, composed by Cole Porter in 1934.
The song began during a party at the New York apartment of Porter’s classmate from Yale, Leonard Hanna. Hearing a cowboy’s lament on the radio, Porter sat down at the piano and improvised a parody of the song. He retained the referential song’s minor-keyed blues melody and added his wry take on lyrical subject matter common in country music: the regret of abandonment after being deceitfully coerced into sexual submission. Instead of a country girl, however, Miss Otis is a polite society lady.
Garner Rea’s cartoon appeared in the Dec. 29, 1034 edition of the New Yorker.
Just about everyone in the world recorded it as well but few captured the haunting theme as much as the covid era, #quarantunes (#live from home) version by Morgan James.
According to legend, Cole Porter wrote the song “Miss Otis Regrets” Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, better known as Bricktop, for her to perform.
Bricktop Smith was an American dancer, jazz singer, vaudevillian, and self-described saloon-keeper who owned the famous nightclub “Chez Bricktop” in Paris from 1924 to 1961.
If you can find a recording of Bricktop’s version, please let me know.
If anyone has a good cowboy lament for 2024, also please let me know.
I am thinking of reworking the words to Miss Otis …
Here are the lyrics:
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today,
Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.
She is sorry to be delayed,
But last evening down in lover’s lane she strayed,
Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.
When she woke up and found
That her dream of love was gone,
Madam,
She ran to the man
Who had led her so far astray,
And from under her velvet gown
She drew a gun and shot her lover down,
Madam,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.
When the mob came and got her
And dragged her from the jail,
Madam,
They strung her upon
The old willow across the way,
And the moment before she died
She lifted up her lovely head and cried,
Madam,
“Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.”
No Haiku For You 