Peggy Lee: Don't Smoke In Bed
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Susan had originally planned on posting a different version of Don't Smoke In Bed this week, but since she never got to it, I'm taking the opportunity to offer my own favorite take on this old torch song.
Nothing against Nina Simone - she's the queen. But I just love the way songwriter Peggy Lee's original vocals grow ever distant and echoey towards the end of the song, as if her voice were fading slowly into the night. It's a chilling treatment of the sparse lyrics, a fitting tribute to the woman that some cite as the world's first truly famous singer-songwriter - and an apt transition into a week of songs that lament unrequited, unfinishable, lost or incompatible love.