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."
Mañana
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
My pocket needs some money, so I can't go into town
My brother isn't working and my sister doesn't care
The car she needs a motor so I can't go anywhere
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
My mother's always working, she's working very hard
My mother thinks I'm lazy and maybe she is right
I'll go to work mañana but I gotta sleep tonight
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
Oh, once I had some money but I gave it to my friend
He said he'd pay me double, it was only for a lend
But he said a little later that the horse she was so slow
Why he give the horse my money is something I don't know
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
My brother took a suitcase and he went away to school
My father said he only learned to be a silly fool
My father said that I should learn to make a chile pot
But then I burned the house down, the chile was too hot
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
The window she is broken and the rain is comin' in
If someone doesn't fix it I'll be soaking to my skin
But if we wait a day or two the rain may go away
And we don't need a window on such a sunny day
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me) Oba! Oba!
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me) Oba! Oba!
The song "Manana" by Peggy Lee, released in 1948, is a humorous take on procrastination and a laid-back attitude towards life. The lyrics paint a picture of a lazy, carefree individual who is content with living in the moment and deferring tasks to a future time. The opening lines describe a leaky faucet and a falling fence that need fixing, but the singer cannot attend to them due to a lack of money and the car needing a motor. The verses go on to depict the singer's family members working hard while they prefer to sleep in the yard or burn down the house trying to make chili.
The chorus repeats the Spanish word "mañana," which means "tomorrow," conveying the carefree attitude of the singer towards getting things done. The character seems to be unburdened by responsibilities and content to let things happen as they may, instead of worrying too much about the future. The song's melody is upbeat and catchy, with a chorus that is easy to sing along to, making it a fun and memorable tune.
Line by Line Meaning
The faucet she is dripping and the fence she's fallin' down
The faucet is leaking and the fence is falling apart.
My pocket needs some money, so I can't go into town
I don't have any money to go to town.
My brother isn't working and my sister doesn't care
My brother isn't employed and my sister is indifferent.
The car she needs a motor so I can't go anywhere
The car doesn't have a working motor so I can't go anywhere.
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
I'll deal with it tomorrow.
My mother's always working, she's working very hard
My mother is always working tirelessly.
But every time she looks for me I'm sleeping in the yard
I am napping outdoors every time she tries to find me.
My mother thinks I'm lazy and maybe she is right
My mother believes I am indolent and she could be correct.
I'll go to work mañana but I gotta sleep tonight
Tomorrow I will work but tonight I must sleep.
Oh, once I had some money but I gave it to my friend
I used to have money but I gave it to a friend.
He said he'd pay me double, it was only for a lend
He promised to compensate me double the amount.
But he said a little later that the horse she was so slow
Later, he claimed the horse was too sluggish.
Why he give the horse my money is something I don't know
I'm not sure why he spent my money on the horse.
My brother took a suitcase and he went away to school
My brother packed a suitcase and left for school.
My father said he only learned to be a silly fool
According to my father, he learned nothing useful.
My father said that I should learn to make a chile pot
My dad advised me to learn how to cook chili.
But then I burned the house down, the chile was too hot
Sadly, I burnt down the house because the chili was too spicy.
The window she is broken and the rain is comin' in
The window is broken and rain is seeping into the room.
If someone doesn't fix it I'll be soaking to my skin
If no one repairs it, I'll get drenched standing here.
But if we wait a day or two the rain may go away
If we wait for one or two days, the rain might stop.
And we don't need a window on such A sunny day
We don't need a window on a bright, sunny day.
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
I'll handle it tomorrow.
Oba! Oba!
An expression of joy or excitement.
(Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me)
I'll deal with it tomorrow.
Oba! Oba!
An expression of joy or excitement.
Lyrics © Kanjian Music, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Dave Barbour, Peggy Lee
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@josegaillard
mi padre en Lima Perú, me cantaba el coro cuando no queríamos hacer algo y mis hermanos y yo le decíamos mañana
@hellafuckingood
I love how she just sits there and performs everything only with her face. What an artist!
@1jacqueline234
Peggy was an awesome talent!!
@carlosmontenegro7171
Ay caramba
@bearc1373
Really good friend of mine, Joel, introduced me to this track...I'm an old soul I absolutely love this! 🇺🇸
@mark1968
Good 'Ole Peggy.
@janschattenkerk6308
Een fantastisch lied,,,
@TomDoesUtube
Amen Peggy – Mañana Is Soon Enough for Me
@kennygr8ify
Good for Cinco de Mayo Day!
@vinceyrankings
Nice song to be of 1948