We’re all alone
No chaperon
Can get our number,
The world’s in slumber,
Let’s misbehave.

These lines are from Cole Porter’s song “Let’s Misbehave,” written for the Broadway musical comedy *Paris* (1928), introduced by the show’s star, Irene Bordoni. Porter’s lyric plays with the Jazz Age fascination with nightlife, sexual freedom, and the loosening of social supervision—especially the idea of a “chaperon” policing respectable behavior. In the late 1920s, Porter’s urbane, witty songs often used sophisticated wordplay and innuendo to capture the era’s modern manners and its flirtation with transgression, making “Let’s Misbehave” emblematic of his stylish, slightly scandalous Broadway voice.

The speaker frames misbehavior not as moral collapse but as a playful, consensual escape from surveillance. The imagery of being “all alone,” untraceable (“Can get our number”), while “the world’s in slumber” creates a private pocket of time where ordinary rules relax. Porter’s genius is in the contrast between the jaunty, almost innocent sing-song rhythm and the clear erotic implication: the thrill comes from breaking decorum while sounding impeccably civilized. The lyric thus captures a modern, metropolitan attitude—pleasure as performance, rebellion as wit, and intimacy as a game played just beyond society’s gaze.