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."
Let me go
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Let me go
Let me go
Let me go
Let me go
Let me go, lover
Let me be
From your spell
(Lover)
You made me weep
Cut me deep
I can't sleep, lover
I was cursed
From the first day I fell
You don't want me
But you want me
To go on wanting you
How I pray that
You will say that we're through
Please turn me loose
What's the use?
Let me go, lover
Let me go
Let me go
Let me go
You made me weep
Cut me deep
I can't sleep, lover
I was cursed
From the first day I fell
You don't want me
But you want me
To go on wanting you
How I pray that
You will say that we're through
Please turn me loose
What's the use?
Let me go, lover
Let me go
Let me go
Let me go
(Lover, let me go)
(Lover)
Let me go
Let me go
Let me go
Joan Weber's version of "Let Me Go, Lover" is a song about a woman who is trying to break free from her lover's spell. She wants to be released from his grip and be set free from her pain. The lyrics express her despair and frustration as she has been hurt by her lover's actions. She cannot sleep and is continuously haunted by his presence, but she knows that she needs to move on. The song has a sense of urgency, which is highlighted by the use of repeated words and the fast-paced rhythm. Weber's delivery of the lyrics is powerful, conveying the emotions of the lyrics through her voice.
Interestingly, "Let Me Go, Lover" was released by different artists at the same time, and each had a charting version. Weber's version was the most successful, reaching the number one position on the Billboard chart for four weeks. The song was also popularized by Peggy Lee, Patti Page, Sunny Gale, and Teresa Brewer with The Lancers. The songwriters, Jenny Lou Carson and Al Hill, were known for their Western songs, and "Let Me Go, Lover" marked their foray into pop music.
In conclusion, "Let Me Go, Lover" is a powerful and emotional song that expresses the feelings of a woman trying to break free from her lover's spell. The lyrics are delivered with urgency and are reinforced by the use of repeated words and a fast-paced rhythm. The song was successful for its time, and its popularity was aided by the different artists' versions that were released simultaneously.
Line by Line Meaning
Oh, let me go
Please release me from this relationship
Let me go
I do not want to be in this relationship anymore
Let me go, lover
I am addressing my partner as my lover, but I do not want to be in this relationship anymore
Let me be
I want to be on my own and free from this relationship
Set me free
I want to be released from the spell that your love has cast
>From your spell
I want to be free from the intoxicating effect of your love on me
You made me weep
Your actions have caused me to cry and be upset
Cut me deep
Your actions have hurt me emotionally
I can't sleep, lover
I am losing sleep over this relationship
I was cursed
This relationship has caused me nothing but trouble
>From the first
From the beginning of this relationship, things have not been going well
Day I fell
I made a big mistake when I fell in love with you
You don't want me
You do not want to be with me in this relationship
But you want me
You want me to continue to desire you and your love
To go on wanting you
You want me to continue pining for you, even though you do not want to be with me
Now I pray that
I am hoping and wishing that
You will say that
You will finally say
We're through
That we are finished and no longer together
Please turn me loose
I am begging you to let me go from this relationship
What's the use?
There is no point in continuing in this relationship
Let me go, lover
Again, I am requesting to be set free from this romantic relationship
Let me go
I am urging you to let me leave this relationship behind.
Let me go
I am pleading for my freedom and release from this relationship
Lyrics © Roba Music Verlag GMBH, Kanjian Music, BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Benjamin Weisman, Fred Wise, Jenny Lou Carson, Kay Twomey
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Anonymous
on Why Don't You Do Right (Get Me Some Money Too)
Why Don't You Do Right - Casey Abrams - Lyrics
You had plenty money 1922
You let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too?
You're sitting there wondering what it's all about
You ain't got no money, they will throw you out
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too?
Musical Interlude
You had plenty money 1922
You let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too?
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?