MISS OTIS REGRETS (Cole Porter) - Harry Roy & his Orchestra - Parlophone UK R 1919 - 1934

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Description

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MISS OTIS REGRETS
(Cole Porter)

Harry Roy & his Orchestra

October 1934

Mayfair Hotel London

Parlophone UK R 1919
mx : E 6615
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Miss Otis Regrets" is a song about the lynching of a society woman after she murders her unfaithful lover.
It was composed by Cole Porter in 1934, and first performed by Douglas Byng in Hi Diddle Diddle,a revue that opened on October 3, 1934, at London's Savoy Theatre.
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.
Friend and Yale classmate Monty Woolley jumped in to help Porter "sell it",
pretending to be a butler who explains why Madam can't keep a lunch appointment.
In the previous 24 hours, Miss Otis was jilted and abandoned,
located and killed her seducer,
was arrested, jailed, and, about to be hanged by a mob,
made a final, polite apology for being unable to keep her lunch appointment.

This performance was so well received that the song evolved, "workshopped" with each subsequent cocktail party,
many of which were at the Waldorf-Astoria suite of Elsa Maxwell, to whom Porter dedicated the song.

Words :
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 Lovers Lane she strayed
Madam, Miss Otis regrets
She's unable to lunch to day
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
Miss Otis regrets
She's unable to lunch today
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Phonograph:
His Master's Voice 163 Upright Grand
With 6 feet reentrant
exponential Orthophonic steel horn
(Accoustically dampened)

Soundbox :
Rebuilt HMV n5b Soundbox

New British made soft tone steel needle

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Recorded with LG G8 s
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Recorded with LG G8 s
Thin Q mobile
Electret large diaphragm Microphone
iRig preamp

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