Don’t call pretty Peggy She can’t hear you no more Don’t leave no message ‘Round her back door They say the old laughing lady Been here before She don’t keep time She don’t count score You can’t have a cupboard If there ain’t no wall You’ve got to move There’s no time left to stall They say the old laughing lady Dropped by to call And when she leaves She leaves nothing at all See the drunkard of the village Falling on the street Can’t tell his ankles From the rest of his feet He loves his old laughing lady ‘Cause her taste is so sweet But his laughing lady’s loving Ain’t the kind he can keep There’s a fever on the freeway Blacks out the night There’s a slipping on the stairway Just don’t feel right And there’s a rumbling in the bedroom And a flashing of light There’s the old laughing lady Everything is all right.
I have been asked about the “The Old Laughing Lady” many times, including recently. I was not with Neil when he wrote the song and only heard it after it was recorded.
I have always loved the song and below I share the events of the night, that I think may, in part have inspired the song.
Early spring 1966…..from the memory of Victoria Cavaleri.
The Commodore Gardens Apartments stood on Orchid Avenue, just off Hollywood Boulevard, in a building that no longer exists.
The entrance opened into a long, narrow hallway. The first door on the left was the manager’s apartment. It had a door divided horizontally, with a window in the upper half. During business hours, the top half was usually open. On Saturday nights, it was always closed, and a small sign appeared on the door: DO NOT DISTURB.
All the tenants knew what that meant. Saturday night was Peggy’s night.
Peggy—the building manager—dressed for the occasion in black lace and velvet. She was probably in her late fifties or early sixties, which, to us in 1966, seemed quite old. Her boyfriend arrived with flowers and a bottle of spirits. He was handsome for a man his age and looked, to me, like he might have been an actor. He was also a man who liked his alcohol.
Just past the office door, on the opposite side of the hallway, was a wide, open stairway leading to the second floor. There were only two apartments upstairs, and the building’s single shared telephone sat at the edge of the curved wooden handrail.
At the top of the stairs were two doors. The door on the right opened into a studio apartment with one large window overlooking the street below. The door on the left led into the apartment where I lived with my roommate Donna and Neil. It was the only one-bedroom apartment in the building. The rent was eighteen dollars a week.
In the apartment across from ours lived a young girl, close to the due date of her baby, with her equally young boyfriend. My guess was that they were seventeen or eighteen years old. The boy was high much of the time. That worried Donna, Neil, and me. We tried to look after them as best we could.
It was a typical Saturday night, about three in the morning, when Neil and I came home from the Whisky. We had walked the three miles back after his last set. Donna—the only one of us with a car—was not home yet, and we didn’t expect her anytime soon.
We opened the front door to the building as quietly as possible and tiptoed past Peggy’s apartment. We turned right toward the stairway, expecting to slip upstairs and into our apartment without making a sound.
But it was only a moment before we were stopped dead in our tracks.
On the stairway sat our neighbors. The boy was nearly passed out, blocking access to the landing above. His girlfriend—very close to her due date—sat beside him, quietly urging him to stand and walk the remaining steps into their room. He was not responding in any helpful way.
There was only one thing to do, and that was help.
Trying to get him up the final half of the stairway was not easy. He had no sense that silence mattered. Between his laughing and our efforts to move his resistant body, the situation grew louder and louder.
We had violated the DO NOT DISTURB notice.
Peggy’s door stood open. She was still dressed for her Saturday night—black lace and velvet—but her hair and makeup were mussed.
With only moments to spare, Neil used the last of his strength to get the boy upright and guide him through the doorway, which the girl had managed to open.
What Peggy saw next were only two people—Neil and me—standing on the open landing in front of the street-facing windows. We looked as though we had been through a fight. We had not yet unlocked our apartment door.
Peggy was furious. Awakened from her only night of pleasure, she ordered us out by eight a.m.
There were no cell phones. We had four hours left, our few belongings, and no idea what to do. We had no family in Los Angeles and not enough money to call a cab even if we had somewhere to go.
We piled our clothes and Neil’s guitar near the front door and sat huddled together on the small sofa, waiting and hoping Donna would arrive and save us.
Just before daylight, we heard keys in the lock. I prayed it was Donna and not Peggy.
It was Donna.
When we explained what had happened, Donna went to speak with Peggy. She explained the situation. Peggy forgave us—and asked us to forgive her. Then she did something unexpected.
She gave Neil his own apartment, one he had been denied before.
By morning, everything was quiet again, but nothing was quite the same.
The story continues with Neil’s move, finding the two perfect roommates, Orange Julius and Black Cat Plain, and shopping for his apartment decor. (saved for another post).