In a peculiar song by Cole Porter, the narrator apologizes – on behalf of another – for missing a luncheon date. “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today, Madam.”
I learned this song young (which explains something). I assumed Miss Otis was a businesswoman and the narrator was a co-worker, but apparently she’s a “society lady” and the narrator is a servant. Either explains the frequent incongruous “Madam”s.
If you feel you MUST go the whole homicide-arrest-lynching route, obviously you’d want to be dressed for it. Yet is that hat really the statement you want to make?
The speaker can’t resist giving the real reason Miss O can’t make it. “She is sorry to be delayed, but last evening down in Lover’s Lane she strayed. Madam.”
Really! Can you tell me more?
Well, since you ask. “When she woke up and found that her dream of love was gone – Madam – She ran to the man who had led her so far astray. And from under her velvet gown, she drew a gun and shot her lover down. Madam.”
Oh dear. Well, let’s see, I assume she’s in custody. Do you think she’d like a visit? I know a very good attorney with a criminal practice.
If there’s no place for a gun under your velvet gown, a basket may meet your concealed carry needs.
Actually, no. “When the mob came and got her and dragged her from the jail – Madam – They strung her upon the old willow across the way. And the moment before she died, she lifted up her lovely head and cried – Madam – Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.”
Oh. Wow. Thanks anyway.
And, um. No apology necessary!
I’ve pondered this song a lot, maybe too much. They lynched her for that? The man who let Miss Otis down must have been popular. Ordinarily I would expect the public to have a soft spot for a lovely woman in a velvet gown who shoots a cheating boyfriend…
(I don’t want to say I’ve been banking on it, but I do feel like my options are narrowing.)
I have sometimes wondered if we were meant to think that Miss Otis’s last words were “I regret that I’m unable to lunch today!”
What about that apology? Just saying someone’s unable to make it isn’t quite enough explanation. Hence the song, I suppose. Which is more than enough. “She got dumped last night? That’s all right, tell her I underst– then she killed him? We’ll resched– they lynched her? Well. There’s a thing. Have you eaten?”
When a boyfriend lets you down, there are OTHER OPTIONS besides homicide. As Captain Vincenzo Lunardi, Mr. George Biggin, & Mrs. Letitia Anne Sage would tell you. Think how impressed and jealous he will be as you float past in your handsome balloon. And velvet gown.
If the apology had come directly from Miss Otis, I’d argue that it was a case of making it all about yourself, but I can see how the story ran away with the narrator. Madam.
There’s also a bit of minimizing going on. “Sorry to be delayed”? SHE’S NOT GOING TO MAKE IT AT ALL. Madam.
It’s said that Cole Porter wrote this song in response to a dare. At a restaurant with friends, he’d said he could write a song about anything. Oh? Let’s see if you can do it for the next thing we hear. Which was a message from a waiter to he next table: “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.”
He put in the heartbreak, the murder, and the lynching to make it more interesting. Old folk music tricks, but he made them work.
Ada Bricktop Smith used to tell the story of Porter going one day to her restaurant in Paris, being very upset because the paper carried the news of one miss Otis having been lynched. The first woman since a long time. Bricktop very dryly said to his maitre “Miss Otis regrets..etc.” . Porter, very much touched by her harshness went home, wrote the song and left it at Bricktop’s. So, she’ s the madam he talks to. She’s also reported as being the first to ever perform the song, that same night.
Ah! Thanks for that.
Now all fields are filled.
I have always wondered about the song and happy that I researched it. What a sad day for Miss Otis.