Miss Otis Regrets
LUNCH still goes on here on Miami Beach even though my beloved sister, du Barry,—the doyen of social gatherings—is back home in Newport, Rhode Island. The weekly ceremony now travels from home to home with mine being next week’s destination.
Today’s is being held on Fisher Island, a paradise by anyone’s standards, but one that is a bit out of the way. After long thought about the notion of actually missing LUNCH versus the fact that I would have to take a cab to South Point and then wait for the ferry and then actually entertain the notion that I was going to return to my office, I called my hostess.
Her boyfriend answered the phone and I said, “Hi, I just want to tell Craig that as, for tomorrow, ‘Miss. Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch…”.
The boyfriend replied, “Who?” I said, “Miss. Otis”. He said, “You’re Alexis; I recognize your voice.”
Then, it struck me: the boyfriend had no clue to the title of the song to which I referred: Alberta Hunter’s famous rendition on the recordings made in London in 1934. This is a CD that I’ve taken for granted since it was released in the late 80’s. It has a collection of period Hunter pieces the likes of which I don’t believe have ever been duplicated. But, I never thought that someone like the boyfriend (who is 32, by the way) would never have heard
“Miss Otis Regrets”.
Perhaps I am too romantic, but when I first heard lines like,
“…Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today, Mister,
Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today,
She is sorry to be delayed,
But last evening down on Lover’s Lane she strayed.”
So, I went looking for it all night with no results and called Rhode Island announcing I was on the horns of a dilemma. This morning I awoke to find Alberta Hunter on my voice mail. Once again she was singing about a man who did her wrong (she was a very out lesbian for her time).
"From under her velvet gown,
she drew a gun and shot her lover down..."
How sadly wonderful it was to hear her singing the last line of that song as she is being strung up by a mob on the willow,
“And the moment before she died,
she lifted up her lovely head and cried,
Mister,
‘Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today’.”
posted by Alexis du Bois @ 10:42 AM
2 Comments:
"Miss Otis Regrets" was written by Cole Porter after being inspired by a single line he heard a waiter utter in a fellow customer's ear, as he took lunch. The waiter strolled up the single woman at the table next to him, and uttered the immortal line "Madam, Miss Otis regrets, she's unable to lunch today". Porter was so taken by the line that the song fell into place around it. (Source: Liner notes, The complete Ella Fitzgerald Sings Cole Porter) Columbia (2000)
Can anyone confirm the story that Moss Hart was accompanying Porter when they both overheard the famous lyric and that Hart wagered Porter that he couldn't construct a song around it and that the song is Porter's response to Hart's wager?
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