FRANK SINATRA – "Strangers In The Night"

“Paint It Black” might be set in the wake of a funeral, and “Strangers In The Night” might be about a one-night stand, but it’s the latter that keeps popping up in those Co-Op surveys of most frequently-used funeral songs (which I’ve twittered on about here).

Bert Kaempfert co-wrote it: did he have a prior version? Frankie would seem to 0wnzor it now. Funny, also, to have two acts following each other who I think of as having among the scariest Organisations protecting them.

“Strangers” also features, in instrumental form, jostling for space in The Big Chill, and with a different orchestra, in Eyes Wide Shut, and again in Sixteen Candles. Wayne Newton’s version is in Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, and then there’s The Color Of Money, Scarface, A Guy Thing and Prizzi’s Honor. A nice little earner for Bertie Boy. A tape of “Strangers In The Night” also appears at the beginning of The Omega Man, though the music we hear is “A Summer Place” — clearance beefs?

Coverers include, unastonishingly, Mel Torme, Petula Clark, Des O’Connor, Shirley Bassey and of course, Klaus Wanderlich — among about a bazillion others.

Er, sorry, keep getting confused as to which performer I’m writing about.

My memories of the song, back in 1966 (yesterday, when I was young), fall under the category of there being no fool like an old fool. I couldn’t comprehend (either then or now) why the rock music stations in Los Angeles were playing this dreary song sung by that absurd and creepy old man. (I was already aware of his scary security force–the same one that employs the fathers of a number of my students.) “Doobie-doobie-doo”? Old men shouldn’t be singing lines like that–especially one as self-serious as Sinatra. (This is the same old man who, two decades on, threatened to thrash Sinead O’Connor–can’t remember which of her “outrageous” acts brought on the threat, insulting the pope, the American flag, or something like that. If that match had taken place, my money would have been on Sinead.)

Strange how my perceptions in this regard have changed so little over time.

My only wish for this one is that some punk band would do a cover version (a la Sid Vicious’s “My Way”). Now THAT would be interesting.

And yet, we have to ask ourselves, as we do whenever we consider the case of James Last; when all illusions are shredded, when all disguises abandoned, will “Strangers In The Night,” along with “Tears” and “Release Me,” stand as the accurate picture of what most people (non-London/NY/LA, non-scene, slightly getting on and missing the boat, liked Elvis but all these new groups are scruffy and shout) were actually listening to in the sixties, on their deep Bush radiograms? A simulacrum of “popular music”? A concept of sophistication whose cavernous echoes resonate more of the sepulchre than the international airport?

Sinatra hadn’t quite lost it by 1966 – indeed, a quite spellbinding series of albums, including Sinatra and Jobim and Watertown, was to follow – but listen to this song’s titular parent album and grieve at how a song so simple yet grave as Johnny Mercer’s “The Summer Wind” can be sung so bereft of any feeling of bereavement (and this after “Paint It, Black,”; this from the man who in 1959 recorded perhaps the most bereaved long-playing record ever – No One Cares) and, moreover, as most of the songs on the album, ruined by a beyond-cheesy Bontempi organ (much more Reg Dixon than Jimmy Smith) which drag Sinatra down from Valhalla and dump him back on the deck of the Central Pier in Blackpool.

DESERT ISLAND DISCS WATCH:

Barry Briggs, speedway rider(1967)

Ann Mallalieu, First lady President of the Cambridge Union(1968)

Mary Peters, athlete(1973)

Eileen Fowler, Physical excersize instructor(1974)

George Foreman, boxer(2003)

Sir Gulam Noon, businessman(2004).

Rosie, I used to be a regular at Belle Vue Aces in the mid-70s, the Peter Collins era. Here’s another similar story of stadium development, except it has a happier ending, at least for now:
http://bellevueaces.co/history_hyderd.aspx

This was also the stadium where I watched the Radio 1 DJs XI when I was a kid – Stewpot, Tony Blackburn and all. Noel Edmonds was the most popular among the girls in the crowd.

meanwhile at the top of the US charts there was

none more black.

Critic watch:

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download (2010)
Blender (USA) – Standout Tracks from the 500 CDs You Must Own (2003)
RIAA and NEA (USA) – 365 Songs of the Century (2001) 275
The Recording Academy Grammy Hall of Fame Albums and Songs (USA)
Giannis Petridis (Greece) – 2004 of the Best Songs of the Century (2003)
Grammy Awards (USA) – Record of the Year Winner

…and in belated response to Marcello @7: Sinatra was definitely the soundtrack to my neighbours’ 60s and 70s. The husband managed a local record shop and we’d hear Frank’s more upbeat songs through the wall when they entertained in the evenings or tunes like SITN during the day when his wife was on her own.

My sister had a Furby c. 1999 that could sing this 😀 😀 😀

7 for Ol’ Blue Eyes, 3 for the former, though whoever supplied its voice did do a passable impression of Cilla Black.

Not my sort of thing, but I can appreciate Sinatra’s talent. 6/10.