Sometime in 1965, after announcing his retirement from music, Reprise Records managed to convince Barton Lee Hazlewood to produce a trio of young Hollywood celebrity children - including Dean Martin's son - who desperately needed help. After garnering the trio two hit singles, Hazlewood was then asked by Frank Sinatra to help his struggling daughter Nancy - she had been recording for four years with no success. Hazlewood, being the unorthodox country hooligan he was, basically told Nancy, "Sing like a 14-year-old girl who fucks truck-drivers," and with that, she got her first hit - "So Long, Babe." 

The rest is history. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood would go on to become one of the most famous duos in music history. Their combined efforts produced countless number one hits, like "These Boots Were Made For Walkin'," and landed Sinatra her own variety show, Movin' With Nancy. His 1967 psychedelic pop duet with Nancy, "Some Velvet Morning," peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968. The song is a ballad told in two parts - Lee and Nancy's vocals interject each other throughout - about a woman named Phaedra, and "how she gave [him] life." Like most psychedelic songs, the meaning of the lyrics are obscure, but the feeling, the resonance of Lee's haunting, is absolutely present. Phaedra came into his life, ruined it, and left him with only a memory. 


On the liner notes of Nancy & Lee, their first collaborative effort released in 1968 on Reprise Records, Lee and Nancy offer their own explanations to their songs.

q - "What does 'SOME VELVET MORNING' really mean?" 
a - "We don't know. The words 'Velvet' and 'Morning' rhyme in our heads. Phaedra sounds like an 'upper' that doesn't quite make it."

q - "What about 'SUMMER WINE'?" 
a - "What about Summer Scotch? Summer Bourbon? Summer Vodka? ...Wine is liquid love. It sings and makes your heart remember..."



The end.