Peggy Lee / Extra Special! (Remastered) / 1967
A Doodlin' Song
buoyant, winking, lightly flirtatious
This is a light, novelty-leaning pop-jazz tune built almost entirely on scat syllables and playful nonsense rhyme, using the act of 'doodling' musically as a metaphor for flirtation and romantic surrender. Peggy Lee treats the throwaway vocal exercise as the whole point, turning vocalese into a vehicle for charm rather than a frame around a lyric.
playfulness as seduction music-making as courtship nonsense/scat as expressive language lightness and sociability self-aware novelty-song artifice
Who's speaking
A first-person speaker addresses a reluctant or shy listener directly, inviting them to loosen up and join in; the tone is confident and a little teasing, more hostess than confessor, and the sincerity of the romantic declarations is deliberately undercut by the silliness surrounding them.
What happens
The song opens with an invitation to abandon reserve and join a collective scatting game, then moves through a mock-technical vocabulary of musical terms and celebrity namechecks before escalating into a direct, repeated plea for love -- all phrased in the same singsong, nonsense-rhyme register. It closes by circling back to the wordless scat line, now inflected with a plain declaration of love, before a brisk, almost vaudeville sign-off.
How it's built
The song alternates between pure scat refrains and verses that graft specific references (bandleaders, dynamic markings, dance steps) onto a loose AABA-ish pop shape. The bridge-like middle section drops the novelty vocabulary briefly for a more earnest, repeated plea, before the song snaps back to scat and a quick exit line, giving it a theatrical, almost revue-sketch close.
Section by section
Opening scat intro
The song begins with no words at all, just rhythmic scat syllables, before the speaker turns and directly addresses someone sitting out the fun, framing participation in music-making as a social obligation rather than a skill.
First verse
“Obbligato, pizzicato”
Faux-technical musical jargon is deployed for its sound rather than its meaning, establishing a comic register where real vocabulary gets absorbed into nonsense wordplay.
Second verse
The instruction to go softer, invoking a famous easy-listening crooner, turns the song briefly into a meta-commentary on vocal style itself, as if coaching the listener through degrees of romantic intimacy via dynamics.
Bridge/plea section
The scat vocabulary drops away and the lyric becomes a straightforward, repeated request for reciprocated love, the only stretch of the song that reads as emotionally direct rather than performative.
Strudel/apples passage
“like the apples in a strudel”
A homely culinary image softens the more earnest plea that precedes it, pulling the song back from sincerity into cozy whimsy.
Closing scat and sign-off
The return to wordless scat, briefly interrupted by a plain declaration of love, before an abrupt thank-you, gives the piece the shape of a stage bit wrapping up rather than a song reaching resolution.
Craft
- scat/vocalese as lyric content
- Nonsense syllables function as actual lyrics rather than ornamental filler, making the 'doodling' concept self-demonstrating: the form performs the subject.
- name-dropping as texture
- References to a bandleader and a crooner are used less for meaning than for rhythmic and cultural shorthand, placing the song in a specific mid-century easy-listening milieu.
- repetition with escalation
- The repeated plea for love intensifies through small variations, building emotional momentum inside an otherwise frivolous structure.
- food/music conflation simile
- Comparing vocal harmony to apples nestled in a pastry collapses the distance between culinary comfort and musical comfort, reinforcing the song's cozy, undemanding appeal.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats the song as a vehicle for charm and vocal play rather than genuine romantic confession: the love-plea section is real enough to give the piece stakes, but it's surrounded and ultimately swallowed by scat, suggesting that for this speaker flirtation and music-making are inseparable, maybe interchangeable. An alternative reading takes the romantic plea at face value and views the scat as simply decorative novelty-era packaging around a sincere come-on; the song supports either reading since it never fully commits to either register.
Context
Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh were an established pop-jazz songwriting team known for witty, rhythmically playful lyrics in this era, and this track fits that mold as a vocal novelty number designed to showcase phrasing and personality rather than lyrical depth. I don't have specific recording details or chart information about this particular Peggy Lee track beyond what's given.
Listen for
- the rhythmic elasticity Lee brings to the scat syllables, which is really where the song's personality lives
- the shift in vocal dynamics when the lyric calls for softness, mirrored in the performance
- the brief tonal pivot when the song drops novelty language for direct romantic address
- how quickly and casually the song ends, resisting a big dramatic close
About Peggy Lee
Norma Deloris Egstrom, known professionally as Peggy Lee, was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, and actress whose career spanned seven decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, Lee created a sophisticated persona, writing music for films, acting, and recording conceptual record albums combining poetry and music.
1920 - 2002 / United States
Full biography and catalogue