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."
Somebody Else Is Taking My Place
Peggy Lee Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Somebody else now shares your embrace
While I am trying
To keep from crying
You go around with a smile on your face
Little you care for vows that you made
Little you care how much I have paid
My heart is aching
For somebody's taking my place
The song "Somebody Else is Taking My Place" by Peggy Lee and Benny Goodman is a heart-wrenching ballad about losing someone you love to another person. The lyrics speak of the pain and sadness that comes with realizing that someone else has taken over your position in your lover's heart. The opening line immediately sets the tone, "Somebody else is taking my place," as the singer laments the fact that they have been replaced. The next line, "Somebody else now shares your embrace," emphasizes the physical intimacy that the singer is missing out on.
The chorus illustrates the singer's sorrow as they try to hold back their tears while seeing their former partner happy with someone else. The lyrics "little you care for vows that you made" suggests that the person who they loved so much previously is not honoring the promises that they made, which adds to the feeling of betrayal. The line "my heart is aching, my heart is breaking" is a powerful and poignant statement that conveys the depth of the heartache that the singer is experiencing. The final line, "For somebody's taking my place" repeats the chorus and emphasizes the last point that the lover that they still long for has found someone else.
Line by Line Meaning
Somebody else is taking my place
You have found someone else to replace me in your life
Somebody else now shares your embrace
You have let another person hold you and be close to you
While I am trying
Despite my efforts
To keep from crying
To prevent myself from showing my emotional pain
You go around with a smile on your face
You appear happy and unaffected by our situation
Little you care for vows that you made
You disregard the promises and commitments you made to me
Little you care how much I have paid
You show no concern for the emotional and personal sacrifices I made in this relationship
My heart is aching
I feel deep emotional pain
My heart is breaking
I feel heartbroken and devastated
For somebody's taking my place
I am hurting because someone else has taken the place that I once held in your heart
Lyrics © RESERVOIR MEDIA MANAGEMENT INC
Written by: DELMAR BROWN, FREDDY GARCIA, JOE GALDO
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@braiamortega8548
Somebody else is taking my place
Somebody else now shares your embrace
While I am trying
To keep from crying
You go around with a smile on your face
Little you know the price that I've paid
Little you care for vows that you made
My heart is aching
Soon will be breaking
For somebody's taken my place
@simplyblues1
Just watched Peggy Lee on an old Ed Sullivan TV show this morning. Have always loved listening to her smoky voice and she was so alluring. I read that this was her first no 1 hit record.
@ALMONTANAPAGE
Yes, this was her first #1. Interestingly, she didn't carry it with her as she did with "I Got It Bad" and of course, "Why Don't You Do Right?".
@nyranna_
Great song, came across it in a bioshock playlist, very underrated!
@finnmccool684
Oh, Peggy...no one else could ever take your place.
@CeeCeeable
Nice brass band orchestra back up on Peggy Lee.. Love that sound.. Thanks for sharing..
@jheadbomber4925
Great song long live 40s.
@czechconcertinakid83
they dont sing like this anymore :(
@ijustwanttosing
Amazing!!! Thank you so much for uploading these wonderful songs!
@braiamortega8548
Somebody else is taking my place
Somebody else now shares your embrace
While I am trying
To keep from crying
You go around with a smile on your face
Little you know the price that I've paid
Little you care for vows that you made
My heart is aching
Soon will be breaking
For somebody's taken my place
@paulocesarmoreto8581
Peggy Lee inspirou muitas cantoras de jazz famosas de sua época!