Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! – Frank Sinatra

Sometimes you’ve just got to get a little Frank on. It’s late at night, you dim the lights, pour a couple of whiskies and canoodle up with the one you love while the man in the hat does his thing. In this case his thing is swing and Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! swings like no other Sinatra album.

It’s debatable which album is Sinatra’s finest, for most it comes down to a line ball decision between 1955’s In The Wee Small Hours and Songs For Swingin’ Lovers!, which succeeded it the following year. But it’s not so much a question of one being better than the other, it really comes down to mood. If you’ve just broken up with the love of your life and you want to wallow in the misery of your loneliness In The Wee Small Hours is the album for you, but if you’re in the mood for lurve Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! is just the tonic you need – with some Bombay Sapphire gin thrown in if you please!

I didn’t appreciate Sinatra until later in life – my parents didn’t own any of his records, but there’s something about Frank that over time gets under your skin (just like the song itself). For me it was the movies first, with films like From Here To Eternity, High Society and Pal Joey getting a regular run on TV – and while the latter two were an introduction to Sinatra as a vocalist they never gave too many clues as to the real genius of the artist, these were just vehicles for stardom. It’s only when you really start to listen to the music and his phrasing that you understand why he’s one of the finest song interpreters and vocalists of all time – and there was no better time for Sinatra than the 1950’s when he recorded a series of albums with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.

All great artists have the capacity to reinvent and the best of them seem to be able to do it over and over again. For Sinatra, by the time the 1950’s and rock n roll had arrived his days as a teenage heartthrob were over. Frank was well into his 30’s and the bobbysoxers who’d once idolised him were now grown up and had children of their own. His record label had dumped him and his personal life was unraveling with a divorce.

In hindsight it’s hard to see it now, but Sinatra was considered washed up as a vocalist at that time so it was a bold move for Capital Records to sign him – and what a payoff! The albums Sinatra went on to record for Capital during that decade not only returned him to the top of the charts, they set a new benchmark for adult contemporary music with many of those recordings defining the music of his long career.

By the time Sinatra recorded Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! he’d turned 40, yet it’s incredible how youthfully exuberant this album feels and sounds. It hits you from the opening number – appropriately, You Make Me Feel So Young. When Frank slides into ‘every tiiiiiime I see you grin” in the opening verse it’s like he’s just landed on first base (and with any luck listening to this record you’ll do so too with your squeeze). The Chairman uses the same trick later in the song when he’s “runnnnnning across those fields”, doing it with the kind of ridiculous ease that only a vocalist with such precision and timing could do. Frank just lets those words slide on by, yet still hits the mark without ruining his timing on the song. It’s much harder than it sounds folks, particularly when you’re being backed by an orchestra.

Listen to the tone of Frank’s voice on a song like You Brought A New Love To Me, in lesser hands the song would probably come across as a lightweight pop number, but Frank’s voice manages to carry both a harmonic sweetness and a meaningful depth with the lyric to really make the song resonate. While Nelson Riddle’s arrangements brilliantly compliment Sinatra throughout the album the string and brass arrangements are just window dressing on this song. Sinatra’s vocal carries You Brought A New Love To Me on its own, almost in defiance of the orchestra and yet the whole thing works perfectly.

On Old Devil Moon when Frank sings those extended vocal notes it’s an exercise in timing and control. This is not the showiness of a Mariah Carey who takes 15 notes to reach 7, Frank takes us where he wants us and holds us there before moving straight into the next line without skipping a beat. It’s a master class that’s all class.

The album’s centre-piece is I’ve Got You Under My Skin, arguably the greatest song Sinatra ever recorded with an inspired arrangement from Nelson Riddle. The song starts out on a bright and breezy bounce led by a honking sax with Sinatra chiming in on a confident rhythmic cadence. The strings swell underneath as the tempo drops ever so slightly and then the sax takes the lead again before giving way to the strings once more. It’s like a musical battle between the horns and the strings competing for Mr. Sinatra’s favour, as Frank holds the whole thing together with the kind of swagger that was so symbolic of his celebrity persona.

Then as the strings and horns combine Sinatra takes charge, rising to the occasion with his vocal, but it’s only a brief submission from the orchestra. The arrangement builds in sweeping expectation before the full orchestra bursts through into the most glorious, sassy and strident score led by Milt Bernhart’s trombone that is absolutely exhilarating. Sinatra brings it back to earth momentarily with the orchestra barely restrained, only for the entire thing to take off into the stratosphere again as Sinatra belts out “don’t you know little fool, you never can win…”, before the master finally finishes the song with just the barest of musical backing behind him. It is truly one of the most spectacular recordings in contemporary music and all of it achieved in under four minutes.

If you’re not too familiar with Sinatra this is the perfect place to start and if you do know his music then you’ll also know that Songs For Swingin’ Lovers! is the epitome of his work.

*A side note to the cover art. The original cover features Sinatra facing away from the lovers, but a few years after the album was first released Capital Records changed the artwork so that Frank was facing the lovers instead. Every release since then, including CD and MP3 formats have used the revised cover art. I can’t believe how lucky I was to score one of the original pressings in such good nick for the princely sum of $10 from a second hand record store!