Half-Caste Woman

Album: Masters (1931)
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Songfacts®:

  • This has been compared with Cole Porter's "Love For Sale," although the two composers appear to have come up with their songs purely by coincidence and totally independently of each other. Coward is said to have written his song in Kent around Christmas 1930. It went into Charles B. Cochran's 1931 Revue where it was performed by Helen Morgan, but was cut after several weeks being replaced by "Shine On Harvest Moon" - a song with which it has nothing in common.

    "Half-Caste Woman" is a tribute song of sorts, to a type of woman rather than to a particular one, although it should be pointed out that Noël Coward had no sexual interest in women: be they black, half-black, white or any other color.
  • The sheet music for "Half-Caste Woman" was published by Chappell of London in 1931. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

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