Leiber and Stoller: Second Generation Standards

And you wrote the words and music simultaneously?

Leiber: Yeah. Most of the blues were written that way. Once I had a couple of lines, it created a groove. And once the groove was in, Mike could groove with it and extend it, if he wanted to, and that’s the way a lot of the blues were written. The cabaret songs were not written that way. That’s a whole other dimension to our collaboration. We wrote  “Is That All There Is?” in three shots, as I remember it.

That song is so different from your rock songs. Your range as writers is amazing.

Leiber: Well, I guess it’s because we’re just geniuses.

You’re joking, but I’d say it’s true.

Stoller: He isn’t joking [laughter].

Did you write “Is That All There Is?” with Peggy Lee in mind?

Stoller: No. What happened is that Jerry presented me with spoken vignettes, and I set them to music. They were all set to the same music. And Georgia Brown, the British singer/actress came over, and we played this for her. She said, “It’s great…it’s great, but it’s all talking. I need something to sing.” And we had this other refrain, “We all wore coats with the very same lining,” and we stuck it in and she said, “That’s it. I’m gonna do that on my television special in London.” She left and we looked at each other and said, “This doesn’t make any sense” [laughs]. We both vowed to write a refrain-he the lyrics and me the music. The next day I called Jerry and said, “I’ve got a tune that I think is really right for this.” And he said, “OK, but listen, I’ve written a lyric already…and I know that the lyric is right. You might have to jettison what you wrote.” I came over and insisted on playing, and he insisted on reciting. Finally I won, and I played it…the tune…and he said, “Play it again.” And I played it, and he sang the lyric. It fit perfectly. We didn’t have to change anything.

Wow.

Leiber: That is pretty amazing, yeah. That only happened once in 56 years, but it happened.

Does that kind of miraculous occurrence give you any sense that there’s providence at work here?

Stoller: No [laughs].

Leiber: No, not at all.

Stoller: There’s only one rhyme in the entire piece. “Let’s break out the booze and have a ball/if that’s all…there is.” That’s the only rhyme in the piece.

Leiber: In Peggy Lee’s version she sings, “If that’s the way she feels about it, why doesn’t she just end it all? Oh no, not me/I’m not ready for that final disappointment.” Which is wrong. It changes, to some degree, the meaning of the song which was intended-by one word. And that is, “Oh no, not me/I’m in no hurry for that final disappointment,” which is the joke. “I’m not ready for that final disappointment” is not a joke. But she insisted on singing ‘ready,’ because I think she felt that it sounded more natural. And she missed the point.