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."
Nobody
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Heigh-ho, who cares?
Nobody writes his songs to me
No one belongs to me
That's the least of my cares
I may be sad at times and disinclined to play
But it's not bad at times to go your own sweet way
Nobody's arms belong to me
I admire the moon
As a moon
Just a moon
Nobody's heart belongs to me today
Ride, Amazon, ride
Hunt your stags and bears
Take life in its stride
Heigh-ho, who cares?
Go hunting with pride
Track bears to their lairs
Ride, Amazon, ride
Heigh-ho, who cares?
Nobody's heart belongs to me
Heigh-ho, that's bad
Love's never sung her songs to me
I have never been had
I've had no trial in the game of man and maid
I'm like a violin that no one's ever played
Words about love are Greek to me
Nice girls won't speak to me
I despise the moon
As a moon
It's a prune
Nobody's heart belongs to me today
The lyrics of Peggy Lee's song "Nobody" explore the idea of being content with being alone and not needing anyone to belong to or write songs for the singer. The opening lines, "Nobody's heart belongs to me/Heigh-ho, who cares?" convey a sense of nonchalance and almost indifference towards the idea of having someone to love. The singer asserts that not having anyone's heart is "the least of her cares" and that she's perfectly fine going her own way.
The second verse describes how the singer is not enamored by the idea of being in a romantic relationship, and that love has never "sung her songs." She likens herself to a "violin that no one's ever played," conveying a sense of loneliness but also highlighting her uniqueness. The final lines of the verse, "I despise the moon/ As a moon/ It's a prune," indicate that the singer doesn't romanticize things or see beauty where there isn't any.
The last verse reinforces the idea that the singer is happy with being single and doesn't understand or care about love. The use of the phrase "Words about love are Greek to me" implies that the concept of love is completely foreign to her. The final line, "Nobody's heart belongs to me today," reinforces the idea that the singer is at peace with being alone.
Overall, "Nobody" is a song that celebrates individualism and independence, and challenges the idea that being in a romantic relationship is the ultimate goal in life.
Line by Line Meaning
Nobody's heart belongs to me
No one is emotionally attached to me
Heigh-ho, who cares?
I don't care
Nobody writes his songs to me
No one writes songs specifically for me
No one belongs to me
I don't possess anyone
That's the least of my cares
I have bigger things to worry about
I may be sad at times and disinclined to play
There are times when I feel sad and uninterested
But it's not bad at times to go your own sweet way
It's sometimes good to do what you want without anyone's influence
Nobody's arms belong to me
I don't have anyone to embrace me
No arms feel strong to me
I don't feel comforted in someone's arms
I admire the moon As a moon Just a moon
I like the moon for what it is just a celestial object
Nobody's heart belongs to me today
No one is emotionally attached to me today
Ride, Amazon, ride Hunt your stags and bears Take life in its stride Heigh-ho, who cares? Go hunting with pride Track bears to their lairs
An abrupt shift towards positive advice
Love's never sung her songs to me
I have never been in love
I've had no trial in the game of man and maid
I haven't experienced dating
I'm like a violin that no one's ever played Words about love are Greek to me Nice girls won't speak to me
I am an inexperienced in matters of love; I don't understand how it works; eligible girls don't show any interest in me
I despise the moon As a moon It's a prune
I don't find anything special about the moon
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Written by: LORENZ HART, RICHARD RODGERS
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?