Track Five of Frank Sinatra’s Watertown is the concluding song of Side One (or Part One, as it is labelled on the packaging). Remember when albums had sides?

The segmentation is appropriate on an album like this one. You can even look at the the two sides as separate acts in a play, with the flipping of your vinyl record playing the role of intermission. I believe the composers plotted and sequenced the album with exactly that in mind.

This concluding song of Part One has our protagonist looking back at the events that have led him to this point and deciding that he wouldn’t trade the past for a better present.

“If I knew then what I know now,” he sings, adopting the cliche. But he subverts it, continuing “I don’t believe I’d ever change, somehow.”

The “somehow” betrays his mixed emotions. Why would he possibly lead himself down this painful path again? Because he loved her. And he continues to love her, as he reveals in the slight twist on the lyrics in the final verse: “I’ll still be in love anyway.”

Part One of Watertown sets up the story and dives into the psyche of the man at its center. He is wounded but resilient, and still a romantic at heart. But what do we know about the woman who left him? Those answers will come (sparingly) in Part Two.