Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast

 

" Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me"(cover)

Among the 31 short love poems read by Jane Mansfield, I have selected from her album Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me"  (MGM Records, 1964) the one by Robert Herrick : Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast


HAVE ye beheld (with much delight)
A red rose peeping through a white ?
Or else a cherry, double grac'd,
Within a lily centre plac'd ?
Or ever mark'd the pretty beam
A strawberry shows half-drown'd in cream ?
Or seen rich rubies blushing through
A pure smooth pearl and orient too ?
So like to this, nay all the rest,
Is each neat niplet of her breast.

Almost forgotten in the 18th century, and in the 19th century alternately applauded for his poetry’s lyricism and condemned for its “obscenities,” Robert Herrick is, in the latter half of the 20th century, finally becoming recognized as one of the most accomplished nondramatic poets of his age.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-herrick

Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast

No one really knows for certain what prompted Jayne or MGM Records to make this album in the first place. No one, to this day, knows what to make of it.  She certainly wanted to be taken seriously. But no one did:  how could that have been possible :

The photography on the cover is one of the worst Jayne picture I have ever seen, Earl Wilson, the author of the liner notes contributed juvenile breast jokes, and finally few people admitted to have listened to it.

One of the few reviewers to admit he had lstened to it, Nick Jones of the Indianapolis News, wrote : If the idea is a gag - then P.T. Barnum has a new rival, [...] but if she's taking herself seriously, well, it's downright embarassing.

 

A better cover