DOWN IN THE DEPTHS: Finding humor in depression

DOWN IN THE DEPTHS ON THE 90TH FLOOR

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THOUGH DEPRESSION IS a serious subject, even among rich people, American song composer, Cole Porter, found humor in the antithesis between living in a high-rise apartment but feeling down in the depths, as this song shows. (Click here.)
    Note the clever rhymes, and rich vocabulary, as in"pet pailletted gown." A "paillette" is a spangle (a sparkling dress ornament). "Pet" here means favorite, as in "pet peeves."
    The metaphors are clever. Neon lights are "rainbows." Taxis "roar." Dancers "punish the parquet" (wooden floor). "Down in the depths," of course, means sad.
    Everyone is having a good time, asking for "more" drinks. The woman sits "above" them all in her regal (queenly) high-rise ("eagle nest"), but "deserted and depressed." Enjoy the neat internal rhyme on "regal eagle."
    So though the woman is wealthy she's not as well off as the janitor's wife, who can face tomorrow with a lover, which the woman can't because she's been jilted.

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WITH A MILLION neon rainbows burning below me, and a million blazing taxis raising a roar, here I sit, above the town in my pet pailletted gown, down in the depths on the ninetieth floor. While the crowds in all the nightclubs punish the parquet, and the bars are packed with couples calling for more, I'm deserted and depressed in my regal eagle nest, down in the depths on the ninetieth floor. When the only one you wanted wants another, what's the use of swank and cash in the bank galore? Why, even the janitor's wife has a perfectly good love life, and here am I, facing tomorrow, alone in my sorrow, down in the depths on the ninetieth floor. {Instrumental break.} When the only one you wanted wants another, what's the use of swank and cash in the bank galore?  Why, even the janitor's wife has a perfectly good love life, and here am I, facing tomorrow, alone in my sorrow, down in the depths on the ninetieth floor. With a million neon rainbows burning below me. . . .

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