Mel Tormé / 16 Most Requested Songs / 1993
I've Got You Under My Skin
anxious, self-mocking, simmering with suppressed urgency
A Cole Porter standard about romantic obsession that the speaker recognizes as self-destructive but cannot shake. The song dramatizes the gap between rational self-warning and compulsive feeling, with the 'voice' of reason losing out every time to desire.
obsessive love self-awareness vs. compulsion futility of resistance internal conflict desire as addiction
Who's speaking
A first-person speaker addressing the object of obsession directly, while also arguing with an internal voice of reason; the speaker is self-aware but unreliable in terms of self-control, admitting defeat even as they claim to resist.
What happens
The song opens with a flat declaration of total infatuation, then moves into a confession of failed attempts to talk oneself out of it. A middle section introduces an internalized warning voice urging escape, which the speaker tries to heed through sheer willpower and logic. The final sections collapse back into surrender, with the scatted, broken repetitions at the end enacting the very loss of control the lyric describes.
How it's built
Built on a standard AABA-type popular song form expanded with a bridge of direct self-address ('little fool'). The repeated opening and closing lines frame the whole piece, turning the song into a loop that mirrors the obsessive thought pattern it describes. The ending dissolves into scat and repetition rather than resolution, formally refusing closure.
Section by section
Opening statement
The song begins with a matter-of-fact claim of possession reversed — the beloved has taken up residence inside the speaker rather than the other way around. This sets the obsessive frame immediately, without any narrative lead-up.-
First verse, resistance
The speaker admits to rehearsing arguments against the relationship, but the rhetorical question that follows exposes the hollowness of that resistance — the speaker already knows the argument will fail.-
Pre-bridge
Willingness to sacrifice anything introduces a note of masochism, while the image of a voice recurring at night suggests the obsession is loudest in private, unguarded moments.-
Bridge
Self-address becomes explicit and harsher, with the speaker mocking their own naivety.-
Bridge, continued
The attempt at rational self-correction is immediately overridden — the very act of remembering the beloved interrupts the willpower needed to act on reason, demonstrating the cycle the whole song describes.-
Closing repetition/scat
The final section abandons coherent sentences for broken syllables and repeated fragments, formally collapsing into the compulsion the lyrics have been narrating — language itself gives way to feeling.-
Craft
- refrain
- The title phrase recurs at structural pivot points, functioning less as a chorus hook and more as a compulsive thought the speaker keeps returning to, mimicking intrusive thinking.
- personification
- The internal conscience is rendered as an external 'warning voice' that speaks and repeats, externalizing the speaker's own reason so it can be dramatized as a losing argument.
- direct address / apostrophe
- The speaker shifts between addressing the beloved and addressing themselves as a fool, creating two simultaneous conversations that reveal the split between feeling and judgment.
- scat/vocalese breakdown
- In Tormé's rendition the closing repetitions degrade into wordless syllables, formally enacting the breakdown of rational speech under the pressure of desire the lyric has been describing.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats the song as a portrait of obsessive love as a kind of possession or illness — something lodged 'under the skin' that bypasses reason entirely, with the internal warning voice representing a conscience that is acknowledged but overridden. An alternative, lighter reading (common in standards of this era) treats it as witty, self-deprecating banter about infatuation, where the melodrama of 'warning voices' is partly ironic rather than genuinely anguished. Both readings can coexist depending on performance style; Tormé's version leans toward the former through its vocal intensity and eventual breakdown into scat.
Context
Written by Cole Porter in 1936 for the film Born to Dance, this is one of the most recorded standards in American popular song, covered by Sinatra, Fitzgerald, and many others. Tormé's version appears on a 1990s compilation of his most-requested material; as a jazz vocalist known for vocal agility and scat singing, his rendition is likely to emphasize the song's slow build and the breakdown into vocalese at the close, though I don't have detailed knowledge of this specific recording's arrangement or tempo choices.
Listen for
- How the opening line is delivered — flat statement or already trembling with tension
- The shift in tone when the speaker turns to self-address in the bridge
- Whether the 'warning voice' section is sung with real dread or wry humor
- How the ending scat passage is phrased — whether it sounds like triumph, surrender, or collapse
- Dynamic or tempo changes marking the transition from resistance to surrender
About Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé, nicknamed "The Velvet Fog", was an American musician, singer, composer, arranger, drummer, actor, and author. He composed the music for "The Christmas Song" and co-wrote the lyrics with Bob Wells.
1925 - 1999 / United States
Full biography and catalogue