Barton Lee Hazlewood was born in Mannford, Oklahoma on July 9, 1929. The son of an oil worker father, Hazlewood spent most of his youth living between Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Louisiana. His paternal grandmother was Native American. He grew up listening to pop and bluegrass music. Lee spent his teenage years in Port Neches, Texas, where he was exposed to a rich Gulf Coast music tradition. He studied for a medical degree at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He served with the United States Army during the Korean War.
Hazlewood was initially known as a producer and songwriter, for artists including Duane Eddy, Dean Martin, and Dino, Desi & Billy. Following discharge from the military in 1953, Hazlewood worked as a disc jockey in Coolidge, Arizona and two years later, moved to KRUX radio in Phoenix. During that time, he was already writing songs and formed his own record label, Viv. His first hit single as a producer and songwriter was "The Fool", recorded by rockabilly artist Sanford Clark in 1956. He partnered with pioneering rock guitarist Duane Eddy, producing and co-writing a string of hit instrumental records. "Rebel Rouser", released in 1958 was a hit in the US and in the UK; Eddy would eventually have another 14 US hits, including "Peter Gunn", "Boss Guitar", "Forty Miles of Bad Road", "Shazam!" and "(Dance With The) Guitar Man".
Hazlewood is perhaps best known for having written and produced the 1966 Nancy Sinatra U.S./UK No. 1 hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and "Summer Wine", the latter first recorded with Suzi Jane Hokom in 1966. His collaboration with Nancy Sinatra began when Frank Sinatra asked Lee to help boost his daughter's career. When recording These Boots are Made for Walkin', Hazlewood is said to have made this suggestion to Nancy, "You can’t sing like Nancy Nice Lady any more. You have to sing for the truckers". She later described him as "part Henry Higgins and part Sigmund Freud".
Hazlewood also wrote "How Does That Grab Ya, Darlin'", "Friday's Child", "So Long, Babe, "Sugar Town" and many others for Sinatra. Among his most well-known vocal performances is "Some Velvet Morning", a 1967 duet with Nancy Sinatra. He performed that song along with "Jackson" on her 1967 television special Movin' With Nancy. Early in 1967, Lee also produced the number 1 hit song for Frank & Nancy Sinatra "Somethin' Stupid". The pair became the only father-daughter duo to top the Hot 100 with what DJs dubbed 'the incest song' because it performed as if sung by two lovers. The record earned a Grammy Award nomination for Record of the Year and remains the only father-daughter duet to hit No. 1 in the U.S. Jimmy Bowen was listed as co-producer on that record but wasn't there at the time. Hazlewood just gave him credit as per a previous agreement with Jimmy.
Hazlewood also wrote the theme song "The Last of the Secret Agents", the theme song of the 1966 spy-spoof film of the same title. Nancy Sinatra, who had a role in the film, recorded the song for the soundtrack. For Frank Sinatra's 1967 detective movie, Tony Rome, Hazlewood also wrote the theme song which was performed by Nancy. He wrote "Houston", a 1965 US hit recorded by Dean Martin. He also produced several singles for Martin's daughter, Deana Martin, including her country hit, "Girl of the Month Club," while Deana was still a teenager. Other tunes on that project were "When He Remembers Me," "Baby I See You" and "The Bottom of My Mind," all recorded during the 1960s. Hazlewood also wrote "This Town", a song that was recorded by Frank Sinatra that appeared on his 1968 album Greatest Hits and is the basis for Paul Shaffer's "Small Town News" segment theme on the Late Show with David Letterman.
In 1967, Hazlewood started his own record label, LHI Records (Lee Hazlewood Industries). Though it did not receive much attention at the time, the International Submarine Band, led by a then-unknown Gram Parsons, signed with LHI in 1967 and released their one and only album, Safe at Home. Shortly after the album was recorded, Parsons left the band to join The Byrds, contributing several songs to their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The contract Parsons had signed with Hazlewood's LHI caused a great deal of trouble for himself and The Byrds, and in the court settlement most of Parsons' material on Sweetheart of the Rodeo had the vocals removed and re-recorded by Roger McGuinn. This situation led to Parsons' departure from the Byrds not long after the album's release. As LHI producer and Hazlewood's ex-girlfriend Suzi Jane Hokom later noted, Hazlewood was a performer and not a businessman, and his lack of business acumen figured greatly in the label's 1971 demise.
In the 1970s Hazlewood moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where he wrote and produced the one-hour television show Cowboy in Sweden together with friend and Director Torbjörn Axelman, which also later emerged as an album. During ten years in Sweden he made records and films with Axelman. According to a retrospective of his career, the move to Europe was motivated by his "tax problems", concern that his son might be drafted for the Vietnam war and the fact that his record label "LHI was dying anyway", so Sweden looked like the perfect escape route. Decades later, his friend Suzi Jane Hokom made this comment about the years in Europe. "I think he knew he'd burned his bridges in LA and here was a brand new world where he had a built-in fanclub ... He really needed a new start".
Lee was semi-retired from the music business from the late 1970s and all through the 1980s. However, his own output also achieved a cult status in the underground rock scene, with songs recorded by artists such as Rowland S. Howard, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Miles Kane, Vanilla Fudge, Spell, Lydia Lunch, Primal Scream, Entombed, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Hooverphonic, KMFDM, Anita Lane, Megadeth, The Ukiah Drag, Beck, Baustelle, the Tubes, Thin White Rope, Yonatan Gat, Zeena Schreck/Radio Werewolf and Slowdive.
In 2006, Hazlewood sang on Bela B.'s first solo album, Bingo, on the song "Lee Hazlewood und das erste Lied des Tages" ("Lee Hazlewood and the first song of the day"). He said that he loved producing and writing albums.
In 2007, Reprise/Rhino Handmade Records posthumously released 'STRUNG OUT ON SOMETHING NEW: THE REPRISE RECORDINGS', a set of his work at Reprise from 1964-1968 (excluding the Nancy Sinatra recordings). The 2 CD collection, totaling 55 tracks, covers three of his solo albums as well as production work for other artists, such as Duane Eddy, Sanford Clark, Jack Nitzche and Dino, Desi & Billy.
Since 2012, the Light in the Attic record label reissued many Hazlewood albums, including 400 Miles From LA: 1955-1956, which became available in September 2019.
Hazlewood died of renal cancer in Henderson, Nevada, on August 4, 2007, survived by his wife Jeane, son Mark and daughters Debbie and Samantha.
Dark End Of The Street
Lee Hazlewood Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
That's where we always meet
Hiding in shadows where we don't belong
Living in darkness to hide our wrong
You and me at the dark end of the street
You and me
I know time's gonna take its toll
It's a sin and we know it's wrong
Oh, but our love keeps comin' on strong
Steal away to the dark end of the street
You and me
They're gonna find us, they're gonna find us
They're gonna find us, oh, some day
You and me, huh, at the dark end of the street
You and me
And when the daylight hours roll around
And by ten we're both downtown
If we should meet, just walk on by
Oh, darling, please don't cry
Tonight we'll meet at the dark end of the street
The opening verse of Lee Hazlewood and Ann-Margret's "Dark End of the Street" provides an insight into a forbidden love affair. The lovers meet in secret at the dark end of the street where they hide from the world. They both know that their love is not acceptable and that they don't belong in that shadowy place. The lack of light is symbolic of the situation; they live in darkness to hide their wrong. Despite their consciousness of wrongdoing, their love still perseveres, and they still find their way back to the dark end of the street to be together.
The verse continues, and the singer reflects on the inevitability of their actions catching up with them. Time will take its toll, and they will inevitably pay for the love they stole. The pair knows it's a sin, and that their actions aren't right, but they cannot help but continue. Their love is too strong. The final lines of the song suggest that they will continue with this behavior, regardless of their knowledge that it is not sustainable. "Tonight we'll meet at the dark end of the street" suggests that their love affair will continue, and they will continually seek refuge in this forbidden place.
Line by Line Meaning
At the dark end of the street
We meet each other at a place where it’s dark and lonely
That's where we always meet
We keep meeting secretly at the same place
Hiding in shadows where we don't belong
We’re hiding in a place where we shouldn’t be
Living in darkness to hide our wrong
We continue to hide in the dark to cover up our mistakes
You and me at the dark end of the street
It's just the two of us, meeting secretly
I know time's gonna take its toll
I'm aware that the passage of time will eventually catch up to us
We have to pay for the love we stole
We’ll have to pay for the forbidden love we have taken
It's a sin and we know it's wrong
Our love is considered a wrongdoing and we both know it
Oh, but our love keeps comin' on strong
However, our love for each other continues to grow stronger
Steal away to the dark end of the street
Let's secretly slip away to our meeting place at the dark end of the street
They're gonna find us, they're gonna find us
We know that people will eventually discover our secret
They're gonna find us, oh, some day
We’ll be caught one day in the future
You and me, huh, at the dark end of the street
It’ll still just be the two of us, no matter what happens
And when the daylight hours roll around
When it's daylight and we’re out and about
And by ten we're both downtown
And we happen to be in the same area by 10pm
If we should meet, just walk on by
If we happen to see each other, we should just ignore one another
Oh, darling, please don't cry
Don’t be upset or cry if we run into each other
Tonight we'll meet at the dark end of the street
We’ll see each other again tonight at our secret meeting place
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Chips Moman, Dan Penn
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@bolbiitp7850
At the dark end of the street
Oh, that's where we always meet
Hiding in shadows where we don't belong
Living in darkness to hide our wrong
You and me at the dark end of the street
You and me
I know time's gonna take its toll
We have to pay for the love we stole
It's a sin and we know it's wrong
Oh, but our love keeps comin' on strong
Steal away to the dark end of the street
You and me
Chorus: Don't let me find us
Don't let em find us
Don't let em find us
You and me
They're gonna find us, they're gonna find us
They're gonna find us, oh, some day
You and me, huh, at the dark end of the street
You and me
And when the daylight hours roll around
And by ten we're both downtown
If we should meet, just walk on by
Oh, darling, please don't cry
Tonight we'll meet at the dark end of the street
You and me
Chorus: don't let em find us
Don't let em find us
Don't let em find us
Don't let em find us
Don't let em find us
Don't let em find us
@samo1426
this version is way better then the original. with james karrr
@simonevans343
Sam O not a competition. Glad they ALL exist
@FungusMossGnosis
Hahahaha. Whatever, man. It's a novelty, that's for sure.
@dantecamberlen5031
Heard this in a skate video about 10 years ago. Still slaps on a perfect sunny day like today
@cultreport7887
Osiris feed the need
@joel17285
Same haha
@luisalejandrogalvansoberan629
I remember when that video just came out, its been a while
@radtad1983
that was my only slate video growing up and i literally live by every song on that video till this day, got it for free out a thrasher mag lol
@southernCal909
John lupfer part, Osiris video. Still have the dvd. Pretty sure he ends with a nollie inward heel manny over the chain down the steep bank.
@32cactusking
Love this version!