In Ella Fitzgerald’s version of Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top,” she sings:
So who or what is a masy leroux? I can’t find anything by googling “masy leroux” except these lyrics.
I don’t have the official lyrics from the sheet music, and now I’d like to see them and confirm one way or the other, but I suspect “lazy lout” is the misheard/altered lyric, mainly because “I’m a lazy lout who’s just about to stop,” is too clumsy and unwitty a lyric to be Cole Porter, and it’s not in the vein of the song with it’s unusual metaphors. Also, masy leroux shows up in the lyrics on several web pages, not just one. Finally, Ella Fitzgerald is a very articulate singer and it doesn’t sound like she’s saying “lazy lout.”
I always took the lazy lout line to mean… I’m so lazy I’m about to stop telling just how “The Top” you are.
That makes sense. Good reading. It is also the lyrics that appear in the songbook (you search inside the text using amazon.com).
However, I am not completely satisfied… Lots of songs from Porter have different versions of the lyrics, and this song seems to have more alternate lyrics and obscure verses than any. It seems like if someone mis-transcribed the song, they would write English words, not “masy leroux.” Also, “masy leroux” appears in several places on the web (that may have all copied the first person?)
Aha. There’s a Maison Leroux champagne. Porter got cute and called it “masy leroux.” Puzzle solved.
I’m sorry, no. It’s “I’m a lazy lout who’s just about to stop.”
The entire song is a litany of “You’re great, I’m scum.” This particular chorus (which is butchered from two choruses as sung in the musical)(yes, choruses; two verses and seven choruses – go figure) is like all the others:
You’re the top! You’re an arrow collar
You’re the top! You’re a Coolidge dollar,
You’re the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire,
You’re an O’Neill drama, You’re Whistler’s mama,
You’re camembert.
You’re a rose, You’re Inferno’s Dante,
You’re the nose on the great Durante.
I’m just in the way, as the French would say, “de trop”.
But if, baby, I’m the bottom,
You’re the top!
and
You’re the top! You’re a Waldorf salad.
You’re the top! You’re a Berlin ballad.
You’re a baby grand of a lady and a gent.
You’re an old dutch master, You’re Mrs. Aster,
You’re Pepsodent.
You’re romance, You’re the steppes of Russia,
You’re the pants on a Roxy usher.
I’m a lazy lout that’s just about to stop,
But if Baby, I’m the bottom,
You’re the top!
Now, it’s possible that Ms. Fitzgerald did sing “Maisy Leroux” at one time; I’ve never heard it. But that ain’t the way Cole Porter wrote it (and I think it makes less sense, too). A google search for “You’re the Top” and “Leroux” found only 13 hits (for three unique sites) listing that lyric; “lazy lout” got 57. All of the “Leroux” sites list Ms. Fitzgerald specifically, and all spell the phrase “masy leroux.” Perhaps it was a signal that she was running out of champagne?
I see different versions of the song.
Cite? Finding one version does not prove the other doesn’t exist.
It may be that Ella’s version is the only cited on the Internet, but that doesn’t mean Cole Porter didn’t write the words. In any case, I’ll consider the authorship of the lyric undetermined, but what the hell it means answered.
You’ve never heard Ella Fitzgerals sing the Cole Porter songbook? Fer cryin’ out loud, get off your computer and get thee to the music store.
“You’re Pepsodent”?
A kind of toothpaste. Really great toothpaste, I suppose.
I still remember the jingle from over 40 years ago:
“You’ll wonder where the yellow went
When you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!”
Just listened to Ella sing “You’re the Top” on Rhapsody. It’s is very clear she sings “lazy lout.”
Peace.
No, it’s very clear she sings “maison leroux.” I listened to it just today, and it is very clearly “maison leroux” and not even “masy leroux,” as the transcription suggests. I will put an MP3 file up if I need to.
Porter wrote “masy leroux” because he couldn’t think of anything that rhymed with “Leonard Zelig.”
Of course, I was listening to the Verve/Songbook recordings…
OK she must have 2 recordings then. With all due respect, I just downloaded the mp3 myself, and she very clearly sang “lazy lout”. If I strain, and really try to, I can hear how it might sound like “maison leroux” (lazy lout who) but… in my recording, at least, it is definitely lazy lout.
Me, too. At CD, not MP3, quality.
Granted, Ella slides the diction around… lingering on the M in “I’m,” softpedalling the L in “lazy,” and replacing the T for an almost silent glottal stop in “lout.”
Thus, it sounds like… “I’mmmmmma ayayayayay zzeeeee lououou.”
But it sounds a lot more like “I’m a lazy lout.” Than “I’m a mazy leroux.”
Peace.
Sorry, no natter how hard I try, I cannot ignore the “r” in between the “lo” and the “oo”, not can I hear a “t” in there. You would have to really, really expect and want to hear “lazy lout” to do so. Repeated listening only makes the lyric less intelligible.
Anyway IF she sings “maison leroux,” as is transcribed by some, she means champagne I think.