IS THAT ALL THERE IS?
“Is That All There Is?” is a song written by American songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller during the 1960’s. It became a hit for American singer Peggy Lee and an award winner from her album in November 1969. Peggy Lee’s version reached number 11 on the U.S. pop singles chart – becoming her first Top 40 pop hit since “Fever”, 11 years earlier – and doing even better on the adult contemporary scene, topping that Billboard chart. It won Lee the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and then later was named to the Grammy Hall of Fame. The orchestral arrangement on the song was composed by Randy Newman, who also played the piano and conducted the orchestra. (More from Wikipedia)
One of the loudest of the “disco sucks” crowd among the friends that I had back then pushed The Knack as what we should all like instead. All I had ever heard at that point was “My Sharona”, and I was inclined to say with Peggy Lee: “Is That All There Is?”.
(March 2012)
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Like the women’s music pioneers before them, there is hardly any sexuality on the Boyskout songs; and anyone can enjoy this CD, which sounds great on the first spin and only gets better over time. Even on “Girl on Girl Action”, the sexy mood of the breathey vocals is undercut by a very slow rendition of the iconic quote from the chorus of “Is That All There Is?”: “If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing / Let’s break out the booze and have a ball”.
If I had to guess, I would imagine that Boyskout heard “Is That All There Is?” as performed by PJ Harvey for the soundtrack of the film, Basquiat (1996) rather than the Peggy Lee hit version of “Is That All There Is?”.
(January 2014)
