My second favorite album of 1970 is Frank Sinatra’s little-known but no less classic concept album Watertown.
The album tells the tale of a man picking up the pieces after being left by his wife. He raises his two children, earns the sympathy of his neighbors, and quietly tries to win her back. The record ends with him waiting in the rain at a train station, the wife having gone back on her promise to return.
I’m taking a little Christmas break this week while I prepare the countdown of my favorite 2015 songs.
To get everybody in the holiday spirit, I’ll post five renditions of my favorite Christmas song, ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,’ starting with Old Blue Eyes.
I’ve written quite a bit about my love of the melancholy Frank Sinatra — Only the Lonely, In the Wee Small Hours and all that good stuff.
But it’s hard to deny the appeal of Sinatra’s flip side, the uptempo, jazzy style epitomized on 1956’s Songs For Swingin’ Lovers. This album was the unlikely successor to In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, making for one of the best one-two punches in music history.
Well here’s a lovely treat on a Random iTunes Weekend — the title track from Frank Sinatra’s sad-sack concept album, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.
I love the swinging Frank Sinatra of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ and ‘Come Fly With Me’ but my true affection for Ol’ Blue Eyes lies with the depressing records.
Another honorable mention for my list of favorite songs is ‘Angel Eyes,’ the second track on Frank Sinatra’s classic downer of an album, Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely.
Given my penchant for the melancholy, it’s no surprise that this is my favorite Frank Sinatra album (or that my second favorite is the break-up concept record Watertown, which I dissected song-by-song a couple of years ago).
Meet Me In Montauk 