Then let's keep dancing.

I was thirteen when this song came out, and it fit my view of life in a town too out of the way even to attract a circus to be bored by, and where I knew I'd never fit in.

It has been almost half a century for me to learn Miss Peggy Lee's classic, "Is that all there is?" is based on a story by Nobel laureate Thomas Mann.

Here's a half-hour BBC Radio 4 story of the song and its impact.

And here's a reading of Thomas Mann's story, "Disillusionment."

Fifty years on, the song is more apt than ever.