THE COMPLETE LYRICS OF COLE PORTER ...

THE COMPLETE LYRICS OF COLE PORTER edited by Robert Kimball (Da Capo: $19.95; 501 pp., illustrated). Cole Porter wrote more than 800 songs, but fewer than half of them have been published, and many have appeared only in simplified and/or censored versions. Kimball’s delightful anthology includes some unjustly neglected lyrics laced with delicious double entendres, e.g. “The Leader of a Big-Time Band” (sung by Ethel Merman in “Something for the Boys” (1943): “When Cugat comes to tea/ With Gypsy Rose/ She gets so het up she/ Puts on her clo’es/ And she only turns one cheek while being scanned/ By the leader of a big-time band.” A sure-fire gift for musical comedy fans.