Is That All There Is?

This song alternates between spoken narration and the sung chorus. It's about a person sunk in chronic boredom, perhaps depressed, to the point where he is not impressed with some of life's greatest spectacles. It's rather macabre.

First, he watches his house burn down and asks, "Is that all there is to a fire?"

Second, he goes to "The Greatest Show On Earth" and wonders, "Is that all there is to a circus?"

Third, he meets someone, falls in love and they break up. "Is that all there is to love?," he wonders.

 

The ending of this song refers to suicide, addressing the listener directly:

I know what you must be saying to yourselves
"If that's the way he feels about it why doesn't he just end it all?"
Oh, no, not me
I'm not ready for that final disappointment

This is not how the song was written. The line was supposed to be:

I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment

"Which is the joke," Jerry Leiber said in More Songwriters on Songwriting. "'I'm not ready for that final disappointment' is not a joke. But Peggy Lee insisted on singing 'ready' because I think she felt that it sounded more natural. And she missed the point."

 

The song was written by the mighty songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

 

The song is based on Thomas Mann's short fiction story Disillusionment. A quick read will reveal that much of the lyrics comes straight from the story, right down to a child watching a fire and the question "Is that all there is to it?"

 

Along with Mann and Kafka, there is yet a third German influence: Mike Stoller composed the music using the operas of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. You'll remember them as the satirists whose work influenced such pop hits as "Alabama Song" and "Mack The Knife."