"Is That All There Is" by Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee's performance makes "Is That All There Is" a classic that spoke to both sides of the generational divide of the 1960s and endures today. Written by hitmakers Lieber & Stoller, arranged and conducted by a young Randy Newman, "Is That All There Is" is the song of her life, and she gave them the performance of theirs. 
You can hear "Is That All There Is" along with 26 other songs by Peggy Lee that we'll hope you enjoy here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4wdSq3foHXvXeDSqOoiO7l?si=bd9a2acb11924075See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
The Shark Deck. Hello and welcometo the best song ever this week.
A short deep dive into a songand what makes it special. The best
song ever this week this week isThat All There Is by Peggy Lee.

(00:31):
I'm Scott Frampton. We won't listento the song together here, but in
the show notes there is a linkto a playlist of this and twenty six
other Peggy Lee songs that we hopeyou'll enjoy. So let's begin. If
you give this song to anyone else, it's your life, Peggy Lee told
Jerry Leeber and Mike Stoler. Itwas nineteen sixty nine and she was still

(00:53):
rightfully billed as the Queen of Americanpopular standards. But by then those standards
were nearly as popular. She wasforty nine, and a lot had changed
in pop music since she last hada hit with Fever in nineteen fifty eight.
The reason she desired the song sostrongly, however, is not that
she heard a comeback hit, andwhat the songwriters had presented the song,

(01:17):
she was sure was an account ofher life, from broken love affairs to
the burning of a family home.Lieber and Stoller had written a string of
poppets in the nineteen fifties, startingwith hound Dog, which they didn't write
for Elvis Presley, to Jail Hell'sRock, which they did. They also
wrote Yakty Yak Love Potion Number nine, and a few dozen other hits enough

(01:38):
to fill a long running Broadway reviewin the nineties called Smokey Joe's Cafe.
What Lee didn't know is that Lieberand Stoller first offered this more grown up
song to Marlena Didrich, who alsoheard herself in the song but told them
it is me, not what Ido. They then sent the song to
Barbara Streisand's manager, who, itseems, never passed it along to the

(02:00):
ascendant star. They didn't have particularlyhigh hopes for this perhaps nihilistic song inspired
by a Thomas Mon story, butthere was truth in Lee's threat and that
she would give them the performance oftheir lives. The one that made the
record was almost as good. IsThat. All There Is was recorded in

(02:23):
June of nineteen sixty nine and wouldbe released that October on an album that
bore its name. Prior to therecording session, Lieber and Stoller met with
Lee in her Los Angeles home,where she played them a record she had
been enjoying the first album by ayoung singer songwriter named Randy Newman, call
it Fade or Good Luck. ButLieber had already tapped Newman to arrange the

(02:44):
song for Lee. The young songwriterhad shown a deft hand at balancing melancholy
cynicism and resilient hope necessary for ahalf spoken song with nods toward German cabaret.
Still, their shared good taste onlybought them so much leeway would Lee,
who had a well earned reputation forgetting her own way. At the

(03:06):
onset of the session, she toldLieber and Stoller, who themselves were known
to put artists through fifty takes ofa song, that she would do three
takes and they shouldn't ask her todo any more. After seven or eight
takes, she reminded them of whatshe had said, that she would only
do a couple more. Around takefifteen, she was noticeably feeling the track

(03:28):
and starting to show off of itwith her vocal phrasings. Then there was
take thirty six. In their fiftyfive years and making records together, this
is the one Stoleer recalled as thegreatest performance we've ever had. They excitedly
called Lee into the control booth forplayback, only there was nothing to hear.
The engineer hadn't pressed the record button. Lieber and Stoller were apoplectic.

(03:53):
Lee just said okay and went backinto the studio for take thirty seven,
the one that had earned her aGrammy for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance. Lee's
vocal style with a deadly combination oftone and uncanny timing. She was never
a girls singer, as the bigband on Genews were called with respect to

(04:15):
Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day, Dinahshore In like, Lee was more soulful.
She deployed her sultry purr strategically seductiveyes, but only to bring you
closer to a song she so deeplyfelt. And while there were plenty of
autocrats behind the microphone, few couldlead a band the way she did,
conducting with an outstretched pinkie or acock of an eyebrow. She was a

(04:39):
platinum blonde icon of a gold standardAmerica whose time was coming to an end.
Even her label, Capitol Records,thought she was passed in nineteen sixty
nine, pressing just fifteen hundred copiesof the single, and only in exchange
for her agreeing to appear on TheJoey Bishop Show. Lee's voice, however,
was one through the din of latesixties social and political upheaval, using

(05:03):
a lesson she learned playing for raucouscrowds in the nineteen forties. As she
wrote in her autobiography, Miss PeggyLeete, I knew I couldn't sing over
them, so I decided to singunder them. The more noise they made,
the more softly I sang. Whenthey discovered they couldn't hear me,
they began to look at me.Then they began to listen As I sang.

(05:26):
I kept thinking softly with feeling.The noise dropped to a hum.
The hum gave way to silence.I had learned how to reach and hold
my audience softly with feeling. Lee'spower was in how deeply she felt a
song, deploying her vocal artistry toput audiences under the same spell. No

(05:47):
matter that there's enough in, isthat all there is? That? The
song could be seen as autobiographical brokenlove affairs. Sure she had had some
famous ones between short lived marriages.The famous lyric is that all there is
to a fire Growing up. Herhome did burn down twice. Here she

(06:08):
takes a song that could just bea bit of theater and softly with feeling,
makes it as personal to the audienceas it is to her. Lee
also made an important alteration to Lieber'slyrics during those thirty seven sessions, changing
quote I'm in no hurry for thatfinal disappointment too, I'm not ready for

(06:29):
that final disappointment for one. Lee'sline simply sounds better. Secondly, her
timing was exquisite and the shorter lineis more taught within the rhythm. Still,
Lieber didn't like it. His linewas meant as a joke, an
indication of good humored resolve to seelife through no matter its disappointments. Lee's
line, which she of course purrsin a near whisper, goes harder,

(06:54):
suggesting that one day she will beready. It's darker, but the weight
of self determination is one of thereasons why the song endoors Peggy. Lee
was no nihilist. She wasn't performinga philosophical argument. She believed that is
that all there is was her life. Norma Dolores Ekstrom from Jamestown, North

(07:16):
Dakota, where those houses burned,willed herself into becoming miss Peggy Lee.
Through a life that was, bymany accounts, marked by profound disappointments,
she learned that she could both loseand find herself in music. She fiercely
protected that space for herself. Thereare names given to women with that much

(07:38):
fight in them, the most plightof which is difficult. Her sincere performance
of Is That All There Is isn'tat all morose. You can sense where
she's having a bit of fun withher phrasings. She didn't want to do
a song she didn't see as positivein that she makes clear what's lost in
the common misconception of nihilism as aposophy of meaninglessness. Accepting that there's no

(08:03):
inherent meaning in all this stuff thatmakes up a cultural narrative is actually an
affirmation of life. Music is away of saying yes to the world,
of saying, if that's all thereis, let's keep dancing, thanks for
listening. You call it ironic ifyou like, But my initial read of

(08:26):
this episode was probably my best ever. Few flubs voice sound and great,
And while the button to record hadbeen pressed or clicked with a mouse,
those setting's got switched from this nicemicrophone here to the one on my laptop
and I sound like I'm in theother room. So let's hope this take
not quite number thirty seven. Thatwas okay. Please do give us a

(08:50):
follow on your podcast platform of choice. We really do appreciate it. Thanks
again, See you next week.I'm Johnny Mack, host of Daily Comedy

(09:16):
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(09:37):
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