Watch Iggy Pop & Debbie Harry Sing a Swelligant Version of Cole Porter’s “Did You Evah,” All to Raise Money for AIDS Research (1990)

Quick sur­vey: Who’s best fit to get at the heart of Cole Porter? The suave sophis­ti­cate who was born in a tux, mar­ti­ni glass clutched in his infant fist? Or punk roy­al­ty? “Well, Did You Evah!” from the 1939 Broad­way musi­cal DuBar­ry Was a Lady, is the brat­ti­er cousin of such Porter hits as “You’re the Top” and “Let’s Do It.” Frank Sina­tra and Bing Cros­by per­formed a boozy cov­er of it for the 1956 film High Soci­ety, but for my mon­ey, the defin­i­tive ver­sion is one Iggy Pop and Deb­bie Har­ry record­ed for a Cole Porter themed AIDS ben­e­fit album, Red Hot + Blue.

Some Porter clas­sics–“Every Time We Say Good­bye,” “So In Love”–demand sin­cer­i­ty. This one calls for a strong dose of the oppo­site, which Pop and Har­ry deliv­er, both vocal­ly and in the barn­storm­ing music video above. They’re dan­ger­ous, fun­ny, and any­thing but canned, weav­ing through rat-glam­my 1980s New York in thrift store fin­ery, with side trips to a ceme­tery and a farm where Pop smooches a goat.

As Alex Cox, who brought fur­ther punk pedi­gree to the project as the direc­tor of Sid and Nancy and Repo Man told Spin: “Iggy had always want­ed to make a video with ani­mals and Deb­bie had always want­ed to pub­licly burn lin­gerie so I let them.”

They also filled Pop’s palms with stig­ma­ta and ants, and swapped Porter’s cham­pagne for a case of gener­ic dog food.

There are a few minor tweaks to the lyrics (“What cocks!”) and the stars inject the pat­ter with a glee­ful­ly louche down­town sen­si­bil­i­ty. Mars ris­es behind the Twin Tow­ers, for a swelli­gant­ly off-beat pack­age that raised a lot of mon­ey for AIDS research and aware­ness. Oth­er gems from the project:

“It’s All Right with Me” per­formed by Tom Waits, direct­ed by Jim Jar­musch

“Night and Day” per­formed by U2, direct­ed by Wim Wen­ders

“Don’t Fence Me In” per­formed and direct­ed by David Byrne

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Iggy Pop Sings Edith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose” in an Art­ful­ly Ani­mat­ed Video

Tom Waits For No One: Watch the Pio­neer­ing Ani­mat­ed Tom Waits Music Video from 1979

Talk­ing Heads Fea­tured on The South Bank Show in 1979: How the Ground­break­ing New Wave Band Made Nor­mal­i­ty Strange Again

Bill Mur­ray Reads Great Poet­ry by Bil­ly Collins, Cole Porter, and Sarah Man­gu­so

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.