Don't Smoke in Bed
Recorded for Capitol Records on December 2, 1947, this haunting song, credited to Willard Robison for both music and lyrics, peaked at #22 on the Billboard chart in May 1948. Peggy revisited it 21 years later when she recorded a new version for her 1969 Capitol album Is That All There Is? Ivan Santiago-Mercado writes, in his authoritative discography of Peggy, that “though officially credited to Robison only, much of ‘Don't Smoke in Bed’ was actually composed by Barbour and Lee. Robison contributed the idea, the title, and the line ‘goodbye, old sleepyhead’ before he fell too ill to continue. (It is not clear if the illness in question was connected to Robison’s ongoing battle with alcoholism.) Robison is said to have offered a songwriting co-credit to the couple, who graciously declined.”
Prior to this collaboration Peggy had recorded Robison’s best-remembered song, “A Cottage for Sale.” In the 1950s, Lee and Robison collaborated (along with Hubie Wheeler) on the song “The White Birch and the Sycamore,” which Lee recorded on her Sea Shells album.
Other singers who have recorded “Don’t Smoke in Bed” include Teresa Brewer, Holly Cole, Rita Coolidge, Jacintha, k.d. lang, Barbara Lea, Julie London, Susannah McCorkle, Liza Minnelli, Connie Russell, Janet Seidel, Carly Simon, Nina Simone, Jack Teagarden, Laura Theodore and Josh White.