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.
The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Lee Hazlewood Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round.
At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never ride
through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school,
And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day.
She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way.
At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never ride
through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.
The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand,
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.
At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever
As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair ...
The Ballad of Lucy Jordan by Lee Hazlewood tells the story of a woman who, at the age of thirty-seven, realizes that her life has not turned out the way she had hoped. The song opens with a description of Lucy Jordan, lying in her suburban bedroom, dreaming of romance and adventure. She longs to travel to Paris and ride through the city in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair. But as she rises from her bed, she is struck by the reality of her mundane life. Her husband is off to work, and her children are off to school, leaving her alone to spend her day cleaning the house or rearranging flowers.
As the day progresses, Lucy becomes increasingly restless, feeling trapped by her life. She contemplates running through the streets naked, screaming in frustration. But instead, she sits in her father's easy chair, softly singing nursery rhymes that offer a glimpse of the childhood innocence she has lost. Despite the monotony of her days, Lucy still hopes for something more.
In the final verses, Lucy climbs to the rooftop to escape the noise of her mundane life. There, she meets a man who offers her his hand and leads her to a waiting car. As they ride through Paris with the warm wind in her hair, Lucy knows she has finally found forever. For Lucy Jordan, the dream of adventure and romance has become a reality, even if it comes too late in her life.
Line by Line Meaning
The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
The day started with Lucy Jordan waking up and opening her eyes as the sun shone upon her face.
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
Lucy Jordan was in her bedroom that was located in a typical suburban neighborhood.
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Lucy Jordan was still in bed having dreamt about countless lovers.
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round.
The morning sun was shining so brightly that the whole room seemed to spin and turn orange.
At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never ride
Lucy Jordan had come to the realization that at thirty-seven years old, she would never experience something she had always dreamed of.
through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.
Lucy Jordan wanted to ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind blowing her hair.
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Instead of answering the phone, Lucy Jordan opted to sing some of the nursery rhymes her father taught her years ago.
Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.
Lucy Jordan had earlier memorized these nursery rhymes while sitting on her dad's favorite easy chair.
Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school,
Lucy's husband had left for work, and the children had gone to school.
And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day.
Lucy had a lot of options on how to spend her day.
She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers
Lucy could spend her free time cleaning her house or rearranging flowers.
Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way.
Alternatively, she could do something wild and unconventional like running naked through the street, screaming as she went along.
The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
As the day progressed, the sun began to set, providing a gentle light as it touched Lucy's eyes.
On the rooftop where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
Lucy Jordan had gone up to the rooftop when the noise on the ground became too loud for her liking.
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand,
A man on the rooftop chivalrously bowed and curtsied to Lucy Jordan before offering to take her hand.
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.
This man took Lucy down to a long white car that was waiting for them beyond the crowd.
At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever
Lucy Jordan had finally found what felt like an eternal experience.
As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair ...
Lucy Jordan finally got her wish to ride throughout Paris in a sports car with the wind blowing her hair.
Contributed by Jacob M. Suggest a correction in the comments below.