[78-L] A love letter to Carolyn Leigh

[David Lennick]

Julian Vein wrote:
> David Lennick wrote:
>>  From today's Toronto Star.
>>
>> http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/cdreview/article/764835
>>
>> dl
> =============
> Getting "Connection was reset"?
> 
>       Julian Vein
> 
Works okay here, if slow to open, but here's the text:

Bard of Wayward Living: Carolyn Leigh

By Richard Ouzounian
  Theatre Critic

I love Carolyn Leigh a lot, or more specifically, her song lyrics, and I 
cherish each obscure CD that offers up a new piece of forgotten material.

Now that Mad Men has caused everyone to go nuts about those lush and louche 
years in the early 1960s, I think the object of my affection might start 
reaching a larger audience.

A Bronx-born babe (1926) with a robust physique, an appetite for cocktails and 
a penchant for temper tantrums, she became, just like Mad Men's Peggy, an 
advertising copywriter in the early 1950s, while writing lyrics on the side. 
Her first hit, "Young at Heart," came along in 1953 and she was then tapped to 
write the songs for Mary Martin's version of Peter Pan. But trouble emerged on 
the road, and about half of Leigh's lyrics were replaced by zappier ones by 
Comden and Green.

Leigh bounced back when she met up with jazz composer Cy Coleman in 1957 and 
they started writing a series of sexy, sophisticated standards that have stood 
the test of time, such as "Witchcraft" and "The Best Is Yet to Come."

Although Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett recorded many of Leigh's lyrics, she 
offered a female viewpoint of lust and longing that was way ahead of its time. 
"You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed," is 
not the kind of thing a lady would sing in those Eisenhower years.

As we rolled into the Swinging Sixties, Leigh's saucy humour came to the 
foreground. A very young Barbra Streisand recorded "When In Rome" (with its 
admonition about brandy: "Don't deplore/ My fondness for Fundador/ You know how 
a Fundador/ Can lead to a few.") and summoned up a whole world of women who 
were learning to drink a bit too much and love a bit too freely.

Leigh wrote a few Broadway shows that didn't quite make it (Wildcat, Little Me, 
How Now Dow Jones), but spawned several pop favourites such as "Hey, Look Me 
Over," "Real Live Girl" and "Step to the Rear."

The final 15 years of Leigh's life weren't happy ones, spent in increasing 
solitude, propped up by alcohol, as projects either evaporated (a musical based 
on The Great Gatsby) or were transferred to other lyricists (Smile).

Shortly before her death of a heart attack in 1983, she joined up with veteran 
composer Jule Styne for an empty, bitter ballad almost haiku-like in its 
simplicity, called "Killing Time."

"Dulling senses/ Lulling fears/ Chilling drinks/ Spilling tears/ Killing time."

A cautionary tale about how one of the Peggys of the real-life Mad Men came to 
a sorry end. An ultimately empty life that yielded some very full songs.

Is it any wonder I want to celebrate Carolyn Leigh? Especially on Valentine's 
Day, a holiday that probably hurt the twice-divorced, usually single lady every 
year when it rolled round.

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