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."
Just One of Those Things
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Just one of those crazy flings
One of those bells that now and then rings
Just one of those things
It was just one of those nights
Just one of those fabulous flights
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings
If we'd thought a bit of the end of it
When we started painting the town
We'd have been aware
Our love affair was too hot not to cool down
So good-bye, dear, and amen
Here's hoping we meet now and then
It was great fun
But it was just one of those things
It was just one of those things
Just one of those crazy flings
One of those bells that now and then rings
Just one of those things
It was just one of those nights
Just one of those fabulous flights
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings
Just one of those things
If we'd thought a bit of the end of it
When we started painting the town
We'd have been aware
Our love affair was too hot not to cool down
So good-bye, dear, good-bye, good-bye, amen
Here's hoping we meet now and then
It was great fun
But it was just one of those things
One of those things, one of those things
It was just one of those things
The lyrics to Peggy Lee's song "Just One Of Those Things" tell the story of a fleeting romance that was exciting and passionate while it lasted, but ultimately doomed to end. The song acknowledges the ephemeral nature of such romances, and suggests that the joy of the experience is worth the pain of the ending. The first verse sets the scene by describing the relationship as "one of those crazy flings" that can happen unexpectedly, like a bell ringing for no reason. The second verse expands on this idea, describing the romance as a fantastic adventure that felt like "a trip to the moon on gossamer wings." The chorus acknowledges that if the lovers had been more realistic about the outcome, they might have avoided heartbreak, but the experience was still worth it: "It was great fun, but it was just one of those things."
The lyrics use a variety of metaphors to convey the temporary, dreamlike quality of the romance. The "crazy fling" is compared to a bell that "now and then rings," suggesting that it is random and unrepeatable. The mention of "gossamer wings" adds to the sense of lightness and fragility. The final line of the song is repeated twice, emphasizing the idea that this was just a passing moment in time, and that while it was enjoyable, it cannot be sustained.
Line by Line Meaning
It was just one of those things
It was an unusual occurrence
Just one of those crazy flings
A wild, temporary romance
One of those bells that now and then rings
A rare and unexpected event
Just one of those things
Just an instance of happenstance
It was just one of those nights
It occurred on a special evening
One of those fabulous flights
An amazing experience
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings
An ethereal journey
If we'd thought a bit, of the end of it
If we had considered the potential outcome
When we started painting the town
When we began having a good time
We'd have been aware that our love affair
We would have realized that our relationship
Was too hot, not to cool down
Would not be able to endure
So goodbye, bye, bye, bye, dear and Amen
Farewell, my love
Here's hoping we meet now and then
I wish to see you occasionally
It was great fun
We had a good time
But it was just one of those things
But it was just a passing moment
Just one of those things
Just a random occurrence
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Cole Porter
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@chuckpeterson3262
The most perfectly understated vocalists in Jazz history.
@davekurtz8757
I remember Peggy singing that song in "The Jazz Singer" with Danny Thomas. Tell you what, a Cole Porter song never sounded so good!
@JustABowlOfCherries
Superior to my UK 78 pressing
@John_Fugazzi
Anyone who thinks that Gordon Jenkins only wrote arrangements for strings needs to hear this.
@lesdixon3031
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