Julie London (née Peck; September 26,1926 — October 18, 2000) was an Ameri… Read Full Bio ↴Julie London (née Peck; September 26,1926 — October 18, 2000) was an American jazz and pop singer and actress. She was noted for her smoky, sensual voice and languid demeanor. She released 32 albums of pop and jazz standards during the 1950s and 1960s, with her signature song being the classic "Cry Me a River," which she introduced in 1955.

London's 35-year acting career began in films in 1944 and included playing opposite Gary Cooper in Man of the West (1958) and Robert Mitchum in The Wonderful Country (1959). She achieved continuing success in the TV medical drama Emergency! (1972–1979), co-starring her real-life husband, Bobby Troup, and produced by her ex-husband, Jack Webb, in which London played the female lead role of nurse Dixie McCall. She and Randolph Mantooth, who played one-half of her medical students, a paramedic, in the series, were very close to her family, until her death in 2000.

Born in Santa Rosa, California, she was the daughter of Jack and Josephine Peck, who were a vaudeville song-and-dance team. When she was fourteen the family moved to Los Angeles. Shortly after that, she began appearing in movies. She graduated from the Hollywood Professional High School in 1945.

London began singing under the name Gayle Peck in public in her teens before appearing in a film. She was discovered by talent agent Sue Carol (wife of actor Alan Ladd), while working as an elevator operator. Her early film career, however, did not include any singing roles.
London recorded 32 albums in a career that began in 1955 with a live performance at the 881 Club in Los Angeles. Billboard named her the most popular female vocalist for 1955, 1956, and 1957. She was the subject of a 1957 Life cover article in which she was quoted as saying, "It's only a thimbleful of a voice, and I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of oversmoked voice, and it automatically sounds intimate."
London's debut recordings were for the Bethlehem Records label. While shopping for a record deal, she recorded four tracks that would later be included on the compilation album Bethlehem's Girlfriends in 1955. Bobby Troup backed London on the album, for which London recorded the standards "Don't Worry About Me", "Motherless Child", "A Foggy Day", and "You're Blasé".
London's most famous single, "Cry Me a River", was written by her high-school classmate Arthur Hamilton and produced by Troup. The recording became a million-seller after its release in December 1955 and also sold on reissue in April 1983 from the attention brought by a Mari Wilson cover. London performed the song in the film The Girl Can't Help It (1956), and her recording gained later attention in the films Passion of Mind (2000) and V for Vendetta (2006). The song "Yummy Yummy Yummy" was featured on the HBO television series Six Feet Under and appears on its soundtrack album. London's "Must Be Catchin'" was featured in the 2011 premiere episode of the ABC series Pan Am. Her last recording was "My Funny Valentine" for the soundtrack of the Burt Reynolds film Sharky's Machine (1981).
Other popular singles include "Hot Toddy", "Daddy", and "Desafinado". Recordings such as "Go Slow" epitomized her career style: her voice is slow, smoky, and playfully sensual.

She was married to Jack Webb, of Dragnet fame. Her obvious beauty and self-poise (she was a pinup girl prized by GIs during World War II) contrasted with his pedestrian appearance and stiff-as-a-board acting technique (much parodied by impersonators). This unlikely pairing arose from his and her love for jazz; their marriage lasted from July 1947 to November 1953. They had two daughters, one who was killed in a traffic accident in the 1990s and one who survived London. In 1954, having become somewhat reclusive after her divorce from Jack Webb, she met jazz composer and musician Bobby Troup at a club on La Brea Blvd. They married on December 31, 1959 and remained married until Troup's death in February 1999. Together, they had one daughter and twin sons.

London suffered a stroke in 1995, and was in poor health until her death in Encino, California, at the age of seventy-four, survived by four of her five children. She died on18th October 2000, and was buried in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Slightly out of Tune
Julie London Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Love is like a never ending melody,
Poets have compared it to a symphony,
A symphony conducted by the lighting of the moon,
But our song of love is slightly out of tune . . . .

Once your kisses raised me to a fever pitch,
Now the orchestration doesn't seem so rich,
Seems to me you've changed the tune we used to sing,

Like the bossa nova love should swing . . . .

We used to harmonize two souls in perfect time,
Now the song is different and the words don't even rhyme,
‘Cause you forgot the melody our hearts would always croon,
What good's a heart that's slightly out of tune?

Tune your heart with mine the way it used to be,
Join with me in harmony and sing a song of love,
We're bound to get in tune again before too long,

There'll be no Desafinado when your heart belongs to me completely
Then you won't be slightly out of tune, you'll sing along with me!

Overall Meaning

Julie London's song "Slightly out of Tune" is a poignant lyrical reflection of the challenges of maintaining love and harmony in a relationship. London paints a picture of love as a never-ending melody, much like a symphony that is conducted by the lighting of the moon. The images she creates evoke the powerful emotions that come with love and its many ups and downs. However, despite the poetic nature of love, our song of love can still fall slightly out of tune.

The lyrics suggest that love, much like a musical piece, requires harmony and synchronization to remain within its intended pitch. The metaphor of the bossa nova rhythm paints a picture of a specific kind of harmony in the song of love that requires the right rhythm and tune. The pain of not being able to harmonize our souls is present when we can not find the words to rhyme, and our song is no longer the same as it once was. The final line brings the essential point home, that when we are out of tune, what good is a heart that is slightly out of tune?

In the end, "Slightly out of Tune" is a love song that speaks to the importance of maintaining harmony and synchronicity in relationships. It highlights the need to adjust the rhythm of our hearts to the one we love to make the song of our love work. The song remains a classic that explores the complexity of love, relationships, and the various ups and downs.

Line by Line Meaning

Love is like a never ending melody,
Love is a constant and everlasting feeling that never fades away, like a melody that never stops playing

Poets have compared it to a symphony,
Poets liken love to the perfection of a symphony, where each element comes together to create a beautiful and harmonious whole

A symphony conducted by the lighting of the moon,
Just like how the moon's light guides conductors in creating an orchestral masterpiece, love too has a guiding force that brings everything together

But our song of love is slightly out of tune . . . .
Although love is meant to be harmonious, our love seems to be off-kilter and not in the right tune

Once your kisses raised me to a fever pitch,
Your kisses were so passionate and intense that they made me feel feverish and overcome with emotion

Now the orchestration doesn't seem so rich,
But now our love seems to have lost its richness and intensity, as if the music has become muted and less vibrant

Seems to me you've changed the tune we used to sing,
It feels like you've altered the very essence of our love, as if we are no longer singing the same tune that we used to

Like the bossa nova love should swing . . . .
Like the musical genre bossa nova that combines jazz and samba, love should also have a lively and rhythmic flow

We used to harmonize two souls in perfect time,
We used to align perfectly as two souls in love, with our harmonies blending flawlessly

Now the song is different and the words don't even rhyme,
But now our love feels different, and the words and actions that once matched perfectly now seem disjointed and out of sync

‘Cause you forgot the melody our hearts would always croon,
It feels like the very essence of our love, the melody that once defined us, has been forgotten and lost

What good's a heart that's slightly out of tune?
What's the use of a heart that isn't in tune with the rest of the world, a heart that is not aligned with its true purpose

Tune your heart with mine the way it used to be,
Let's align our hearts again, tuning them to the way they used to be in the past when our love was perfect

Join with me in harmony and sing a song of love,
Together let's find our harmony once again and create a new song of love that is even more beautiful and enriching than before

We're bound to get in tune again before too long,
We will surely rediscover our love and feel in tune once again, sooner or later

There'll be no Desafinado when your heart belongs to me completely
Just like how there'll be no wrong notes in a perfectly harmonious piece of music, our love will have no dissonance once you belong to me completely

Then you won't be slightly out of tune, you'll sing along with me!
Once our love is in harmony and we're aligned, you won't be out of tune anymore--you'll be singing in perfect unison with me

Lyrics © CORCOVADO MUSIC CORPORATION
Written by: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Newton Mendonca

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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