Lyrics on Several Occasions

My postings got really GAY there for awhile. Gay Life & Gay History are important subjects to me, but certainly not the only interests that I hold.
One of my life long obsessions has been - The Popular Song. When I was very young, I would come home from school at 2:20pm (I had the house to myself until 5:30pm) & I would listen to & dance to music for most of the afternoon (or until Dark Shadows started). I used a candlestick as my microphone & I would pretend that I was a guest on the Mike Douglas Show. I would sing my newest single & then settle down for my interview with Mike. Then Mike Douglas would urge me on to do one more number, as he asked the studio audience to applaud loudly & with enthusiasm to encourage me. I would oblige.
My parents recently made a mixed tape of all my favorite songs from when I was under six years old. They claim that my first favorite song was "Constantinople"... " oh you can't go back to Constantinople, no you can't go back to..." by The Four Lads.
As a very young man I started to collect books about composers. I received a big "coffee table" style book of the Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter for my 12th birthday. I soon had books about all the major composers & lyricists of popular songs & show tunes, which for decades were the same thing. Two of my favorites are Lyrics On Several Occasions by Ira Gershwin (1959) & a big thick collection - Reading Lyrics (2000).
Here are two of my favorite lyrics from two very different talents:

Cole Porter

My story is much to sad to be told
But practically everything leaves me totally cold
The only exception I know is the case
When Im out on a quiet spree, fighting vainly the old ennui
Then I suddenly turn and see your fabulous face

I get no kick from champagne
Mere alcohol doesnt thrill me at all
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you

Some get a kick from cocaine
I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
It would bore me terrific'ly too
But I get a kick out of you

I get a kick evrytime I see you standing there before me.
I get a kick though its clear to me
You obviously don't adore me.

I get no kick in a plane.
Flying too high with some guy in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do,
Yet I get a kick out of you.

(my Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter has 16 more verses... some very ribald)

Elvis Costello

Don't tell me you don't know what love is
When you're old enough to know better
When you find strange hands in your sweater
When your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

Chapter One we didn't really get along
Chapter Two I think I fell in love with you
You said you'd stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three
But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book

The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks

Don't tell me you don't know the difference
Between a lover and a fighter
With my pen and my electric typewriter
Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel

And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book