You're Driving Me Crazy

The song became a hit and was added to the 1930 musical comedy Smiles, starring Marilyn Miller and Fred and Adele Astaire. It was also recorded in 1930 by McKinney's Cotton Pickers and by Nick Lucas & His Crooning Troubadors. Nick Lucas's version, released on Brunswick, was a No. 7 hit: Brunswick 4987 (E-35404). The chords of "You're Driving Me Crazy" form the basis for Bennie Moten's great "Moten Swing."

In 1931, cartoon character Betty Boop sang a sexy version of the song in the pre-code cartoon Silly Scandals. As Boop sang the song, her dress slipped down repeatedly, revealing a lacy bra and causing her to squeal. Later in the song, Betty was joined on stage by a line of mechanical dancing penguins who stomped out the beat in accompaniment to her singing.

"You're Driving Me Crazy" has become a standard that has been recorded by over 100 artists. The artists who have recorded the song include Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Tormé, Della Reese, Betty Carter, Django Reinhardt, Peggy Lee, and Lester Young. A version by The Temperance Seven made number one in the UK Singles chart in 1961.[1]

The song has also been performed in the movies including:

• The 1931 Paramount Betty Boop cartoon Silly Scandals noted above.
• Fleischer Studios 1931 cartoon called Screen Songs, with jazzy scat singing of "You're Driving Me Crazy" by various animals. There is a dancing lion which looks like Betty Boop, monkeys and other animals, including a Cab Calloway sound-alike.
• The 1991 film The Marrying Man starring Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin. "You're Driving Me Crazy" is performed by Alan Paul from Manhattan Transfer.
• The 2005 Oscar-nominated film Good Night, and Good Luck. "You're Driving Me Crazy" and other standards performed by Dianne Reeves.
• The 2001 soccer/prison movie Mean Machine. "You're Driving Me Crazy" is performed by Bob Brozman on a soundtrack.

A cover version by The Temperance Seven, described as an art school band "who were retro before most of pop was even original," was recorded in 1961, reaching number 1 on the UK Singles Chart that May.[2] Their version is a pastiche on the original, and on 1920s dance band music in general, with Paul McDowell's insincere "whispering" helping to highlight this. Music critic Tom Ewing, writing for Freaky Trigger, concurrently described it as "one of the strangest number ones," "one of the most prescient [number ones]" and "the first meta-pop hit", citing the song's "deliberate, tongue-in-cheek commentary on pop via pop, the world of the dance orchestras pushed flippantly into the TV age," feeling this anticipated Roxy Music and Richard X, but also feeling as many people would have bought the single based on nostalgia as those who bought it due to its cleverness.[2]

• A useful list of links to many of the recordings mentioned above
• Vivian Buczek performing an excerpt
• Carling Hot Six on YouTube
• The Temperance Seven Version on YouTube