Haunting . . .

. . . song . . .


(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_That_All_There_Is%3F)
". . . The song [Is That All There Is? by  Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller]was inspired by the 1896 story Disillusionment (Enttäuschung) by Thomas Mann. Jerry Leiber's wife Gaby Rodgers (née Gabrielle Rosenberg) was born in Germany, lived in the Netherlands. She escaped ahead of the Nazis, and settled in Hollywood where she had a brief film career in films noir. Gaby introduced Leiber to the works of Thomas Mann. The narrator in Mann's story tells the same stories of when he was a child. A dramatic adaptation of Mann's story was recorded by Erik Bauserfeld and Bernard Mayes; it was broadcast on San Francisco radio station KPFA in 1964. . ."

I remember this song stirring some emotionality in me as a child during the days of the daytime talk-variety televisions shows such as Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and the like. It's either a very prudent perspective based in reality or a deranged one being expressed by a purely hedonistic personality. Either way, as art, it is the consummate, although somewhat dated, pop song.

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Don't Smoke. . .

. . . in Bed. . .

Peggy Lee was a successful songwriter, with songs from the Disney movie Lady and the Tramp, for which she also supplied the singing and speaking voices of four characters. Her collaborators included Laurindo Almeida, Harold Arlen, Sonny Burke, Cy Coleman, Duke Ellington, Dave Grusin, Quincy Jones, Francis Lai, Jack Marshall, Johnny Mandel, Marian McPartland, Willard Robison, Lalo Schifrin and Victor Young.

She wrote the lyrics for:
    "I Don't Know Enough About You"
    "It's A Good Day", composed by Dave Barbour
    "I'm Gonna Go Fishin'", composed with Duke Ellington
    "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter"
    "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)"
    "Bless You (For The Good That's In You)", composed with Mel Tormé
    "What More Can a Woman Do?"
    "Don't Be Mean to Baby"
    "New York City Ghost", composed with Victor Young
    "You Was Right, Baby"
    "Just an Old Love of Mine"
    "Everything's Movin' Too Fast"
    "The Shining Sea"
     "He's A Tramp"
    "The Siamese Cat Song"
    "There Will Be Another Spring"
    "Johnny Guitar", composed with Victor Young
    "Sans Souci", composed with Sonny Burke
    "So What's New?"
    "Don't Smoke in Bed"
    "I Love Being Here With You"
    "Happy With the Blues" with Harold Arlen
    "Where Can I Go Without You?", composed with Victor Young
    "Things Are Swingin'"
    "Then Was Then" with Cy Coleman

Her first published song was in 1941, "Little Fool". "What More Can a Woman Do?" was recorded by Sarah Vaughan with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. "Mañana (Is Soon Enough for Me)" was no.1 for 9 weeks on the Billboard singles chart in 1948, from the week of March 13 to May 8.

Lee was a mainstay of Capitol Records when rock and roll came onto the American music scene. She was among the first of the "old guard" to recognize this new genre, as seen by her recording music from The Beatles, Randy Newman, Carole King, James Taylor and other up-and-coming songwriters. From 1957 until her final disc for the company in 1972, she produced a steady stream of two or three albums per year which usually included standards (often arranged quite different from the original), her own compositions, and material from young artists.

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