“I Get A Kick Out Of You”
Paul Whiteman And His Orchestra; Ramona, vocal
(Victor 24769-B) October 26, 1934
“You’re The Top”
Paul Whiteman And His Orchestra; Johnny Hauser, Peggy Healy, vocal
(Victor 24769-A) October 26, 1934
Here are 1934 versions by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra of two songs from the musical production Anything Goes, which are still performed and well-known.
Anything Goes made its Broadway debut on November 21, 1934, and closed just under a year later after 420 performances. Since that time, it has enjoyed many revivals and countless local and regional performances. Cole Porter wrote both the music and the lyrics.
When Paramount Pictures made a film version of the musical in 1936, one of the lines in the song “I Get A Kick Out Of You,” “Some get a kick from cocaine...” was regarded as too scandalous for the censors of the era’s strict Motion Picture Code and was thus changed in the film to “Some like the perfume from Spain….“
These recordings by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra were made about a month before the show’s Broadway debut and this was one of the top-selling records of the song.
Radio Dismuke’s playlist features a few other versions of both songs. Among them are recordings issued on a 1934 Bluebird 78 rpm record by George Hall and his Hotel Taft Orchestra with vocals by Loretta Lee and Sonny Schuyler that I personally consider to be the best recordings of both songs.