A two-part tribute to the American songwriter, Cole Porter. In the first half, Jack discusses Porter’s life and his songs: “The musical theater in which Cole Porter functioned is one of the most optimistic artistic environments ever devised. One of its defining couplets was written by Oscar Hammerstein II: ‘Oh, what a beautiful morning, / Oh, what a beautiful day.’ Into that upbeat cauldron of scantily-clad women, into that entertainment for the tired businessman, Porter threw songs of extraordinary blackness, obsession, sado-masochism—songs which were the opposite of everything a WASP gentleman like Cole Porter was expected to uphold. Amazingly, he found extraordinary success in doing it. He did not aim to overthrow the musical theater; he believed in it too strongly. But he did aim to undermine it, to force it to include a kind of content it had never accommodated before: ‘So taunt me and hurt me, / Deceive me, desert me, / I’m yours till I die, / So in love, / So in love, / So in love with you, my love, am I.’ He was the Baudelaire, the dark genius of musical comedy.”