This track is dedicated to the women of the lindy hop scene, and especially to survivors of sexual assault. For a deeper discussion about the context of this dedication and the history of this song in our scene, please visit :
gordonwebstermusic.com/pie
I Like You Best Of All is most widely know in the lindy hop scene by the title I Like Pie, as sung by the Four Clefs. The Four Clefs recorded "I Like You Best of All" (I Like Pie) in 1941 but they didn't write it. It was first recorded 3/16/1925 by Ernest Hare vocals and The Goofus Five. George A Little, lyricist; Larry Shay, composer; Arthur Sizemore, composer.
In the Four Clefs version, lyrics of the first and main chorus are repeated many times instead of the many different choruses of the original:
I Like Pie I Like Cake
I Like Anything You Bake
I Like Your crackers too, crumbled up in a (chicken) stew.
When I see your jelly roll
I just lose my self control
But of all these things I Like You Best of All.
The song’s original lyric includes additional choruses with more mentions of things the singer likes, but still returns to the title message that of all these things, I Like You Best of All.
In my time singing this song for Lindy Hoppers our community has also associated this song with Pi and Pi Day, 3/14 or march 14th by the American calendar. I like the notion of “I Like Pie” being “I Like Pi” and so I included a subtle reference to this in the song, near the end …
For me, this is mostly a fun song, fun to sing over and over again and play with. So fun in fact, that there have been many live versions where I've let it go on seemingly forever, like the number Pi... This version however, is purposely exactly 3:14 long, which is symbolically related to Pi instead.
It was actually quite a task to make a recorded version, featuring my own vocals, that was exactly 194 seconds. Harder than you might think. We had to perform the song in the studio many times, without my vocal track, referencing the metronome before the count-in and aiming to hold steady at a little under 171bpm. After all that, the strongest performance ended with a series of fermatas (held notes) that were a bit longer and also had a longer than expected decay, which somehow resulted in a final product over 3:20. We experimented during the editing/mixing stage and ended up with a shortened intro, still bringing us down to only 3:17. The final adjustment was made via time compression which speeds things up without altering the pitch. The resulting tempo of the 3:14 version is about 1.5% faster, around 173.5 bpm.
The original lyric didn’t include chicken in the stew, and since I’m vegetarian I like the original better than the Four Clefs lyric :)
Above all, in my interpretation of the song, it’s about placing the highest value on the person or people you’re singing it to, by saying that you like THEM best of all, more than all of the things you’re hungry for.
