7. Frank Sinatra — Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! (1956)

1. Someone give me a cold towel to cool me off. What a wild companion piece to In The Wee Small Hours. In 1955, Ol’ Blue Eyes was depressed, lonely, semi-creepily yearning for his ex-wife. A year later, the guy is swingin’, serenading, and sexing up the joint. There’s a whole song here called “Makin’ Whoopee!” What a difference 12 months can make.
2. The curator of this book, Robert Dimery, expressly states in the intro that he excluded Greatest Hits compilations, but is one of those albums that might as well be a Greatest Hits. It features banger after banger (using the 1956 definition of “banger”): “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “You’re Getting “To Be A Habit With Me,” “Old Devil Moon,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Anything Goes” — when I think of Frank Sinatra, these are the kind of jams I think of. He was 40 when he recorded this album, but he sounds born again.
3. Better yet are the studio instrumentalists. The arrangements here are ridiculous boppers. It must have been such a blast to be in the horn section on a song like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin;” if I were playing trumpet in that room I imagine I’d have kicked over my chair and spun around the room once the music swells after the 2-minute mark. Thankfully there were professionals in that room, not me.
4. When I hear this swinging Frankie, I don’t picture Sinatra himself in my mind. I see my paternal Grandfather, who we called Big John. I don’t hear Big John; I see him wearing a Santa suit on Christmas, twirling my aunts and cousins on the makeshift dance floor. I picture a sort of hybrid 1950’s/1990’s scene, where the people and location are those I know from my childhood, but the feeling washing over is a period piece. I’m not even sure I have a concrete, specific memory of Big John dancing, but I think I like it better this way anyhow.
5. 15 songs; 45 minutes. The ideal “3 minute pop song” album.

One Essential Song:

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