She was the singer behind the novelty 45 Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, but with 1959’s Sweet Nothin’s, Brenda Lee proved she was a bona fide rock’n’roll star…
Few people who caught Sweet Nothin’s on the wireless in the autumn of ’59 would have ever guessed the real age of its firecracker singer. For anyone who actually bought the single, however, it was hard to reconcile the image on that sleeve, of an angelic-looking, white-bread, all-American teenager, with the throaty, confident, fully-bloomed vocals they heard on the record.
Listened to now, there’s something undeniably disconcerting about the lyrics this 14-year-old was being asked to sing, and the knowing, sexually mature manner in which Lee delivers them, so much so that some radio stations banned the song on its release. “Uh huh, honey, alright,” she murmurs in the intro, as we hear an indistinct male voice (actually Louis Nunley of the Anita Kerr Singers). “My baby whispers in my ear/ Um, um, sweet nothings/ He knows the things I like to hear.”
“Uh Huh, Honey, Alright…”
If Lee’s earlier release Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree had been a hit in late ’58, the reaction to this sultry number might have been very different, but that wholesome Johnny Marks-penned novelty song had to wait until Lee was a star to triumph. In the event, this was the platter that introduced the American public to the girl born Brenda Mae Tarpley.
While previous single Let’s Jump The Broomstick had found success in the UK, peaking at No.12, Brenda Lee had yet to enjoy a chart hit in her own country, despite having waxed her first 45 aged just 11. That break came with Sweet Nothin’s, written for the singer by rockabilly nearly-man Ronnie Self. It seemed an improbable team-up, this wild-card songwriter, then 21, with this cherubic teenager, yet it worked.
While Lee’s previous releases were a mixture of country covers (Jambalaya (On the Bayou)), old-time standards (Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home) and a novelty number penned by the writer of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, this was a full-blooded rock’n’roll record, a song that anyone from Eddie Cochran to Wanda Jackson to Carl Perkins would have been proud to call their own.
Little Miss Dynamite
The recording session unfolded on 13 August 1959, at a converted barn on 16th Avenue South in Nashville that belonged to Owen Bradley. At 43, he was one of Decca’s most prized producers, architect of the radio-ready sound that would define Patsy Cline’s Walkin’ After Midnight and I Fall To Pieces, as well as Lee’s own Let’s Jump The Broomstick and Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree. For Sweet Nothin’s, however, he dialled up the grit: a rockabilly pulse with country flair.
“It was all done on the spot,” Louis Nunley is quoted as saying in the book Little Miss Dynamite: The Life And Times Of Brenda Lee. “Brenda was at her microphone and we were at ours. I was the one standing closest to her. Since I was the closest, I was picked to come over to do the whispering into her microphone. I wasn’t saying anything really. Just gibberish.”
Released 28 September 1959, backed with the more pop-friendly Weep No More My Baby, Sweet Nothin’s was pushed by Decca via TV spots, where Lee’s diminutive 4ft 9in frame and explosive delivery mesmerised America. Elvis, fresh from his army stint in Germany, was a fan, Priscilla recalling him spinning the 45 on their first date. When the King returned to the US, he phoned Lee and asked for a signed copy of the single, even sending a limo over to manager Dub Allbritten’s office to pick it up. “I couldn’t believe it, the whole staff was excited,” the singer remembered in Little Miss Dynamite.
Provocative Banger
Self would pen or co-pen several more songs for Lee, including the timeless I’m Sorry (a US No.1) and the 1962 ballad Everybody Loves Me But You (US No.6), but Sweet Nothin’s remains their most intoxicating and enduring collaboration. Though to most record-buyers, it’s the Christmas song that Brenda Lee is remembered for, to rockabilly fans it’s this. And it’s not just the rock’n’roll crowd who are inspired by this provocative banger, it seems.
In 1986, producer David Z added Lee’s vocals to Prince’s hit Kiss, while rapper Kanye West sampled the song on his 2013 track Bound 2. It’s also been covered countless times, including by Diana Ross for her 1981 Why Do Fools Fall In Love album, and has popped up on the soundtracks of the films The Locusts (1997) and An Education (2009).
And though it’s something of an outlier on Brenda Lee’s vast discography, it appears it still resonates with listeners. While it can’t match Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree on Spotify for streams (that’s at an incredible 1.3 billion!), the fact that it’s nudging – as of October 2025 – 23 million listens is testament to its imperishable appeal, nearly 70 years after it was recorded. And the fact that Elvis loved it so much he asked for a signed copy, well… who’s going to argue with the King?
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