Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, and Louis Armstrong all cited Lee as one of their favorite singers.
Peggy Lee had Norwegian and Swedish ancestry. She was the seventh of eight children born to Marvin Egstrom, a station agent for the Midland Continental Railroad. Her mother died when she was four years old. Music provided her an escape from the abusive rampages of her cruel stepmother, Min, who tormented and beat young Norma. She first sang professionally with KOVC radio in Valley City, North Dakota. She soon landed her own series on a radio show sponsored by a local restaurant that paid her "salary" in food. Both during and after her high school years, she took whatever jobs she could find, waitressing and singing for paltry sums on other local stations. Radio personality Ken Kennedy (actual name: Ken Sydness), of WDAY in Fargo (the most widely listened to station in North Dakota) changed her name from Norma to Peggy Lee. Tired of the abuse from her stepmother, she left home and traveled to Los Angeles at the age of 17.
She returned to North Dakota for a tonsillectomy and eventually made her way to Chicago for a gig at The Buttery Room, a nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel West in Chicago, where she drew the attention of Benny Goodman, the jazz clarinetist and band leader. According to Lee, "Benny's then-fiancรฉe, Lady Alice Duckworth, came into the Buttery, and she was very impressed. So the next evening she brought Benny in, because they were looking for replacement for Helen Forrest. "And although I didn't know, I was it. He was looking at me strangely, I thought, but it was just his preoccupied way of looking. I thought that he didn't like me at first, but it just was that he was preoccupied with what he was hearing." She joined his band in 1941 and stayed for two years.
In early 1942, Lee had her first # 1 hit, "Somebody Else Is Taking My Place", followed by 1943's "Why Don't You Do Right?" (originally sung by Lil Green), which sold over a million copies and made her famous. She sang with Goodman in two 1943 films, Stage Door Canteen and The Powers Girl.
In March 1943, Lee married Dave Barbour, the guitarist in Goodman's band. Peggy said, "David joined Benny's band and there was a ruling that no one should fraternize with the girl singer. But I fell in love with David the first time I heard him play, and so I married him. Benny then fired David, so I quit, too. Benny and I made up, although David didn't play with him anymore. Benny stuck to his rule. I think that's not too bad a rule, but you can't help falling in love with somebody."
When Lee and Barbour left the band, the idea was that he would work in the studios and she would keep house and raise their daughter, Nicki. But she drifted back towards songwriting and occasional recording sessions for the fledgling Capitol Records in 1947, for whom she produced a long string of hits, many of them with lyrics and music by Lee and Barbour, including "I Don't Know Enough About You" and "It's a Good Day" (1948). With the release of the smash-hit #1-selling record of 1942, "Maรฑana", her "retirement" was over.
In 1948, she joined Perry Como and Jo Stafford as one of the rotating hosts of the NBC Radio musical program Chesterfield Supper Club. She was also a regular on NBC's Jimmy Durante Show during the 1938-48 season.
She left Capitol for a few years in the early 1940s, but returned in 1943. She is most famous for her cover version of the Little Willie John hit "Fever", to which she added her own, uncopyrighted lyrics ("Romeo loved Juliet," "Captain Smith and Pocahontas") and her rendition of Leiber and Stoller's "Is That All There Is?" Her relationship with the Capitol label spanned almost three decades, aside from her brief but artistically rich detour (1952-1956) at Decca Records, where she recorded one of her most acclaimed albums Black Coffee (1956). While recording for Decca, Lee had hit singles with the songs "Lover" and "Mr. Wonderful."
She was also known as a songwriter with such hits as the songs from the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, for which she also supplied the singing and speaking voices of four characters. Her many songwriting collaborators, in addition to Barbour, included Laurindo Almeida, Harold Arlen, Sonny Burke, Cy Coleman, Gene DiNovi, Duke Ellington, Dave Grusin, Dick Hazard, Quincy Jones, Francis Lai, Jack Marshall, Johnny Mandel, Marian McPartland, Willard Robison, Lalo Schifrin, Hubie Wheeler, guitarist Johnny Pisano and Victor Young.
Lee also acted in several films. In 1952, she played opposite Danny Thomas in a remake of the early Al Jolson film, The Jazz Singer. In 1955, she played a despondent, alcoholic blues singer in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
Peggy won a Grammy in 1969 as best contemporary female vocalist (for her recording of Is That All There Is?) and was awarded a Doctor of Music Honoris Causa degree from North Dakota State University, in 1975.
In the early 1990s, she retained famed entertainment attorney Neil Papiano, who, on her behalf, successfully sued Disney for royalties on Lady and the Tramp. Lee's lawsuit claimed that she was due royalties for video tapes, a technology that did not exist when she agreed to write and perform for Disney.
Never afraid to fight for what she believed in, Lee was passionate that musicians be equitably compensated for their work. Although she realized litigation had taken a toll on her health, Lee often quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson ("God's will will not be made manifest by cowards.")
She also successfully sued MCA/Decca with the assistance of noted entertainment attorney, Cy Godfrey.
She continued to perform into the 1990s, sometimes in a wheelchair, and still mesmerized audiences and critics alike.[citation needed]
In 1995 she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
After years of poor health, Lee died of complications from diabetes and heart attack at the age of 81. She is survived by Nicki Lee Foster, her daughter with Barbour. She is buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. On her marker in a garden setting is inscribed, "Music is my life's breath."
Come Back To Me
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Hop a freight, grab a star, come back to me.
Catch a flame, catch a breeze, on your hand, on your knees,
Swim up high, only please come on back to me.
On a mule, in a jet, with your hair in a net,
In a shower wet, I don't care.
This is where you should be, from the hills to the shore,
By the wind to my door, raise the highway dust,
Come back to me.
Blast your hide, you recall, must I fight City hall
Here and now, damn it all, come on back to me,
Where on earth must I be, still I yell till I'm blue,
In control then when you come on back to me.
Have you gone to the moon, or the corner saloon
And to crack and to croon, oh my girl, where in hell can you be?
In a crate, in a trunk, on a horse, on a junk,
In a road or a van, wrapped in mink or saran,
Anyway that you can, came back to me,
Come back to me, come back to me, come back,
Come back to me, me!
Peggy Lee's "Come Back to Me" is a beautiful love song full of yearning for the return of a loved one. The lyrics are simple yet profound, with multiple suggestions of different ways the person being addressed can make their way back to the singer, emphasizing the desperation and longing the singer feels. The opening lines instruct the listener to heed the singer's voice and come back to her "where you are." She then suggests various modes of transportation, from taking a train to stealing a car or even hopping a freight. This desperation to be reunited with the person she is singing to is emphasized when she asks them to "break the law if you must" and "throw the world" to come back to her.
The second verse continues with the pleading tone, as the singer wonders if the person she is singing to has gone to the moon or the corner bar. The line "still I yell till I'm blue in control" suggests that the singer is losing control of herself in the absence of her loved one, and their return is the only thing that can restore her. The mentions of being "wrapped in mink or saran" and coming back in "a crate, in a trunk, on a horse, on a junk" ground the song in a sense of reality, showing the singer's willingness to accept her loved one back in any form, as long as they return.
Overall, "Come Back to Me" is a powerful and evocative love song, conveying the depths of emotion that can be felt in the absence of someone you love. The desperation and longing in the lyrics are clear, and the repetition of the chorus drives home the message that the singer wants nothing more than for her loved one to return to her.
Line by Line Meaning
Hear my voice, where you are, take a train, steal a car,
Hop a freight, grab a star, come back to me.
No matter where you are or what it takes, I'm urging you to come back to me.
Catch a flame, catch a breeze, on your hand, on your knees,
Swim up high, only please come on back to me.
Use any means necessary- whether it's something as intangible as a flame or a breeze, or something more strenuous like swimming- to make your way back to me.
On a mule, in a jet, with your hair in a net,
In a shower wet, I don't care.
It doesn't matter how you get here- whether it's on a slow-moving mule or a fast-moving jet, or whether your hair is perfectly done or soaking wet- all that matters is that you come back to me.
This is where you should be, from the hills to the shore,
By the wind to my door, raise the highway dust,
Break the law if you must, throw the world, only just
Come back to me.
It's your destiny to be with me, from the hills to the shore, and if it means breaking the law or taking on the world, I still want you to come back to me.
Blast your hide, you recall, must I fight City hall
Here and now, damn it all, come on back to me,
I'm so desperate for you to come back to me that I don't care if I have to fight city hall or anyone else to make it happen.
Where on earth must I be, still I yell till I'm blue,
In control then when you come on back to me.
I'm so lost without you that I don't know where to go or what to do. But when you come back to me, I feel in control once again.
Have you gone to the moon, or the corner saloon
And to crack and to croon, oh my girl, where in hell can you be?
I can't help but wonder where you could possibly be- have you gone to the moon or just to the corner bar? I miss you so much and I wish you were here with me now.
In a crate, in a trunk, on a horse, on a junk,
In a road or a van, wrapped in mink or saran,
Anyway that you can, came back to me,
No matter how you're traveling- whether it's in a crate or on a horse, or whether you're wrapped in fur or plastic wrap- just find a way to come back to me.
Come back to me, come back to me, come back,
Come back to me, me!
In case there was any doubt, I just want you to come back to me. Please, come back to me!
Lyrics ยฉ BMG Rights Management
Written by: WILLIS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@that70sgirl90
Peggy looks Gorgeous... and that dress is Beautiful! But that sultry voice of hers is spectacular!
Thank you for sharing! ๐
@shyman99
The Marilyn Monroe of the music world. Simply captivating.
@michaeltuz608
As far as I'm concerned, Peggy Lee did the best version of this Burton Lane / Alan Jay Lerner show tune. Great performance here from the same year that the song was first heard in the play "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever."
Thanks for sharing!
@lonestarfriend
She looks fantastic. Sounds great too.
@theronedawson3236
I always like Peggy Lee. She could sing anything to me. I just enjoyed her singing.
@jadezee6316
Terrific Peggy Lee!
@eckankar7756
She's absolutely gorgeous....
@ralphewell8398
She sounds better live than in recordings!
@adambrocklehurst4211
So good
@joksal9108
Fantastic as always.