“I’ve Got You Under My Skin” is a song written by American composer Cole Porter in 1936. It was introduced that year in the Eleanor Powell musical film Born to Dance in which it was performed by Virginia Bruce. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year but lost out to The Way You Look Tonight. Popular recordings in 1936 were by Ray Noble and his Orchestra (vocal by Al Bowlly) and by Hal Kemp and his Orchestra (vocal by Skinnay Ennis). If someone is “under your skin,” that means you are rather irritated with that person. This song twists the meaning of the idiom, as a lady has gotten under the singer’s skin, but in a way that makes him crazy about her.
“I’ve Got You Under My Skin” is unusual in that the song has no verse. It was standard practice with most popular songs to have a verse to “set-up” the chorus. Ironically most of the time tunes are performed without the verse anyway. The lyrics of “I’ve Got You under My Skin” relate to an infatuation “so deep in my heart, you’re really a part of me.” One of Cole’s neatest rhymes, “use your mentality, wake up to reality,” conveys the message “a warning voice that comes in the night.”
It became a signature song for Frank Sinatra. Sinatra first sang the song in 1946 on his weekly radio show, as the second part of a medley with “Easy to Love”. He recorded a studio version of the song with Nelson Riddle’s orchestral arrangement, accompanied by Irv Cottler on drums and slide trombone solo by Milt Bernhart at Capitol’s Melrose Avenue studios for his 1956 album ‘Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!’ Sinatra aficionados usually rank this as one of his finest collaborations with Riddle’s orchestra. Another version of the song is an electronically assembled duet featuring Sinatra and U2 lead singer Bono on Sinatra’s 1993 ‘Duets’ album. The track was released on a “double A-side” with U2’s “Stay (Faraway So Close!)”. The single peaked at number four on the UK charts.
The Four Seasons scored a Top-10 hit with the song in 1966. In a 2014 interview, Frankie Valli revealed that the Four Seasons were inspired to record this after watching Sinatra perform the song on TV. But they didn’t want to copy the crooner’s style. “We managed to make it sound like us, and that all came under the heading of the way the harmony was laid out. We used a basic type of harmony on almost everything we did – a harmony that had a lot of church overtones, with a touch at times of the modern.”
Swedish singer-songwriter and rapper Neneh Cherry’s interpretation of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” was released the lead single for the Red Hot + Blue charity album in September 1990 and reached number 25 on the UK Singles Chart. Additionally, it was a top 10 hit in Greece and entered the top 20 in the Netherlands and Sweden. It received critical acclaim from music critics. The accompanying music video was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. Cherry replaced most of the lyrics with a rap on AIDS victims and how society reacts to them. Of the original Cole Porter lyrics, she kept only the first four lines and “Use your mentality, wake up to reality”.
