C'est Magnifique
If you hear something which sounds like
a Cole Porter song, the chances are that it will be a Cole Porter song
because he wrote nearly a thousand of them. This is only a sampling of
the songs, though most of these have become "standards" in the parlance
of musicians who sing them, play them, improvise jazz around them, and
enjoy them as much as the listeners who attend them. Other songs which
sound like Porter songs may have been written by Rodgers or Arlen or Mercer
or a hundred others who were only influenced by the Porter style. Of course
he was a genius; who else could say, "In olden days a glimpse of stocking
was looked on as something shocking, now heaven knows . . . . . anything
goes." Who else could write "Friendship," and then turn around and write
"Love for Sale" and then create "Begin the Beguine" and do "Night and Day"
for dessert?
If you wish to see the words as the music
plays, visit the Noteworthy Software site where you can download and install
a plugin designed for most versions of IEx and Netscape; as the music plays,
both the notes and the syllables of the lyrics change colors and show the
progress of the song much as a "bouncing ball" used to do. If you don't
choose to use the Noteworthy plugin, you can still hear the songs as midi
creations by choosing that option instead. All music was notated in midi
format by the author of the site and is the property of same. You may use
any and all of the music for non-commercial entertainment or on your own
web site, but it would be appreciated if you gave both notice of use to
the webmaster here and placed a link somewhere on your site to the original
songs.