Susannah McCorkle (1 January 1946 – 19 May 2001) was an American jazz singe… Read Full Bio ↴Susannah McCorkle (1 January 1946 – 19 May 2001) was an American jazz singer much admired for her direct, unadorned singing style and quiet intensity.

McCorkle was born in Berkeley, California. She studied modern languages at the University of California, Berkeley. McCorkle began singing professionally after hearing recordings of Billie Holiday in Paris in the late 1960s. She nearly became an interpreter at the European Commission in Brussels, but moved instead to London in 1972 to pursue a career in singing. While in the UK, she made two albums which, although well received, enjoyed only limited circulation.

In the late 1970s, McCorkle returned to the United States and settled in New York City, where a five-month engagement at the Cookery in Greenwich Village brought her to wider public attention and elicited rave reviews from critics.

During the 1980s, McCorkle continued to record; her maturing style and the darkening timbre of her voice greatly enhanced her performances. In the early 1990s, two of the albums McCorkle made for Concord Records, No More Blues and Sábia, were enormously successful and made her name known to the wider world. She was recorded by the Smithsonian Institution which at the time made her the youngest singer ever to have been included in its popular music series. McCorkle played Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls five times and Carnegie Hall three times, and was featured soloist with Skitch Henderson and the 80-piece New York Pops in a concert of Brazilian music.

Thanks to her linguistic skills, McCorkle translated lyrics of Brazilian, French, and Italian songs, notably those for her Brazilian album Sabia. McCorkle also had several short stories published and, in 1991, began work on her first novel. She published fiction in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and non-fiction in the New York Times Magazine and in American Heritage, including lengthy articles on Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Irving Berlin and Mae West.

McCorkle suffered for many years from depression and cancer, and took her own life at age 55 by leaping off the balcony of her highrise Manhattan apartment. She was alone in her home at the time. The police immediately entered her home after identifying her body and found no foul play. Suicide was ruled the cause of death.

I Get A Kick Out Of You
Susannah McCorkle Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I get no kick from champagne,
Mere alcohol,
Doesn't thrill me at all,
So tell me, why should it be true,
That I get a kick out of you.

Some get a kick from cocaine,
I'm sure that if,

I took even one sniff,
It would bore me terrifically,too,
Yet I get a kick out of you.

I get a kick every time I see you,
Standing there before me,
I get a kick though it's clear to see,
You obviously don't adore me.

Some get a kick in a plane,
Flying too high,
With some gal in the sky,
Is my idea of nothing to do,

But I get a kick out of you.
I get a kick, out of you.

Overall Meaning

The song "I Get A Kick Out Of You" by Susannah McCorkle talks about the singer's lack of excitement or interest in substances like champagne or cocaine. However, she gets a thrill from something else, which is the person she addresses in the song. The singer confesses that although the person she sees standing before her doesn't feel the same way towards her, she still feels a strong sensation of excitement or pleasure in seeing them.

Furthermore, the song talks about how some people might get a kick out of different things such as being in a plane, flying high with someone, but that doesn't appeal to the singer. She finds her pleasure and excitement coming from and focused on the person she desires. The lyrics are meaningful as they explore how people have varied interests and what gives them excitement and pleasure can vary, but for the singer, it's the person she adores.

Line by Line Meaning

I get no kick from champagne,
Drinking champagne doesn't excite me.

Mere alcohol,
Just drinking doesn't do much for me.

Doesn't thrill me at all,
It's not exciting or stimulating.

So tell me, why should it be true,
I don't understand why people make such a big deal out of it.

That I get a kick out of you.
But I get an exciting thrill from being around you.

Some get a kick from cocaine,
Some people find the drug cocaine exciting.

I'm sure that if,
I'm confident that if I tried it,

I took even one sniff,
Just one inhalation,

It would bore me terrifically,too,
I would find it incredibly dull.

Yet I get a kick out of you.
Yet being with you provides me with a similar intense pleasure.

I get a kick every time I see you,
Whenever I see you, I get a surge of excitement.