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-fiancée, 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, "Mañana", 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."
Hey
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes
Love never made a fool of you
You used to be too wise
Hey there, you on that high flying cloud
Tho' she won't throw a crumb to you
You think some day she'll come to you
Better forget her
She has you dancing on a string
Break it and she won't care
Won't you take this advice
I hand you like a brother
Or are you not seeing things too clear
Are you too much in love to hear
Is it all going in one ear and out the other.
The song Hey There by Peggy Lee was a popular hit in the 1950s that conveyed strong emotions of unrequited love. The track begins with Hey There, a greeting that sets the tone of what follows ahead. The song is about an admirer who can't get the woman he desires out of his head. He is infatuated with her, and he thinks that someday she will be his. The lyrics talk about his hopes and unrealized dreams of being with this woman who never pays him any attention.
The lyrics "Love never made a fool of you, you used to be too wise" are particularly poignant, as they suggest that the singer was once very pragmatic but has now become a victim of love. He is blinded by his emotions and can't see that there might be better solutions to his problems than pining over someone who doesn't care about him. The chorus advises him to forget about the woman and move on because she won't care if he does. It encourages him to take their advice because he is too in love to hear what anyone else has to say.
Line by Line Meaning
Hey there.
Greetings and attention.
Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes
Addressing someone who shows optimism, hope or dreamy-eyed.
Love never made a fool of you
Implying that the addressee is clever and never lost to love before.
You used to be too wise
Implying that the addressee became less wise due to newly found love.
Hey there, you on that high flying cloud
Speaking to someone who is on top of the world, possibly after falling in love.
Tho' she won't throw a crumb to you
Referring to an unrequited love which the addressee is still holding on.
You think someday she'll come to you
Posing a question about the addressee's high expectations of reciprocated love.
Better forget her
Suggesting the addressee move on from the unrequited love.
Her with her nose in the air
Designating the attitude of the person the addressee is infatuated with.
She has you dancing on a string
Using a metaphor to describe the addressee's behavior as being under control of the unrequited love.
Break it and she won't care
Implying that the addressee should not worry about the unrequited love's reactions when deciding to move on.
Won't you take this advice
Asking the addressee to heed the forthcoming advice.
I hand you like a brother
Explicitly stating that the addressee and the singer have a close and trustworthy relationship.
Or are you not seeing things too clear
Raising an inquiry in case the addressee is having illusions regarding the unrequited love.
Are you too much in love to hear
Questioning whether the addressee is so infatuated that they can not hear reason.
Is it all going in one ear and out the other.
A rhetorical question, implying that the addressee may not take the advice provided.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA/AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Richard Leonard
For years this was the only version I knew of. My parents had it on an album. I still like it.