UCLA Special Collections Library. Westwood Village, CA. An historian of popular music, poring through UCLA's vast collection of half-written songs and musicals by the American composer-lyricist Cole Porter, has uncovered what appears to be a fragment of an early version of Porter's cleverly written "You're the Top."
While Porter's name does not appear anywhere on the single page, and since the lines are typed and therefore cannot be compared with Porter's handwriting, the damaged "s" on the keyboard on which this version was typed matches a few other typed pages of songs that have Porter's name clearly printed on them.
Why Porter abandoned this somewhat raunchy version for the one that was published is unclear, but the fragment clearly bears Porter's humor:
You're the pits! You're a mausoleum
You're the --its! you're a sick No-see-um
You're a voice off key in a parody of Faust
You're a hopeless nitwit, an unforgiving twit
You're always soused!
You serve slop, you're a junked Pierce Arrow
Call a cop, you're not straight and narrow
You're a burst balloon, a dumb baboon, a mop
So my Baby I must tell you
You're a flop!
