Songfacts®:

• According to Robert Kimball in The Complete Lyrics Of Cole Porter, "I've Still Got My Health" was published in October 1940 and introduced by Ethel Merman and ensemble in Panama Hattie. He adds: "There are several typescripts of this song that had to be reconciled. My aim was to make the song as complete as possible with maximum fidelity to Porter's original intentions."
• While Miss Merman may have had hers, health was the last thing Porter had, and it is difficult to interpret this whimsical number as anything but a black joke against himself; by the time he wrote it, he would surely have been warned he would spend the rest of his life in pain. In October 1937, Porter was involved in an horrific riding accident; his horse rolled on him, crushing both his legs. He would eventually have more than thirty operations on them and was in constant pain. The accident also left him with damage to his nervous system and chronic osteomyelitis. In 1954 his wife died; four years later, his right leg was amputated, and he died in October 1964 a virtual recluse. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2