"My beloved Mom and Pop always rated tops with each other, and that's the way it will always be"
About this Quote
Ethel Merman isn’t offering a Hallmark sentiment here; she’s staking out a credo. “My beloved Mom and Pop always rated tops with each other” lands in the vernacular of her era - “rated tops” sounds breezy, even a little show-bizzy - but the emotional move is serious: love as loyalty, measured not by grand declarations but by an everyday, mutually affirmed ranking. In a world where performers were marketed, appraised, reviewed, and replaced, she borrows the language of ratings to describe something stubbornly unmarketable: two people choosing each other, repeatedly.
The subtext is aspiration and defense. Merman’s public persona was brass, volume, and certainty; this line imports that certainty into private life. It idealizes her parents’ bond as an anchor point, the baseline against which everything else is judged. The phrasing also sidesteps messiness. “Always rated tops” doesn’t leave room for rough patches, boredom, or compromise - it’s a memory polished into a standard. That polish matters: for someone who lived under spotlight conditions, turning family into an unchanging myth is a way to claim stability when the rest of life is a run of opening nights and closing notices.
“And that’s the way it will always be” is the tell. It’s less prediction than insistence, a refusal to let time revise the story. The intent is tribute, but also self-protection: if her parents’ love is permanent, then at least one part of the world stays put.
The subtext is aspiration and defense. Merman’s public persona was brass, volume, and certainty; this line imports that certainty into private life. It idealizes her parents’ bond as an anchor point, the baseline against which everything else is judged. The phrasing also sidesteps messiness. “Always rated tops” doesn’t leave room for rough patches, boredom, or compromise - it’s a memory polished into a standard. That polish matters: for someone who lived under spotlight conditions, turning family into an unchanging myth is a way to claim stability when the rest of life is a run of opening nights and closing notices.
“And that’s the way it will always be” is the tell. It’s less prediction than insistence, a refusal to let time revise the story. The intent is tribute, but also self-protection: if her parents’ love is permanent, then at least one part of the world stays put.
Quote Details
| Topic | Family |
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