Comments on: FRANK SINATRA - “Strangers In The Night”

By: rjm

rjm — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:44:00 +0000

I always thought those Doobie Doobie Doos were a kind of self-parody, as if Frank were saying, “Here, you bastards, is this what you want? I can do this sort of thing in my sleep,” and then laughing it off. And really, as bland as this performance is, has anyone ever done a better version of this song? He made the definitive version without even trying.

Oddly enough, this was the start of one of Frank’s biggest years, his first number one in the US since 1955, and the first of three top five singles (and one top 30) over the next nine months. As for why it suddenly happened, consider that the age of most of his original fans then was about the same as most baby boomers now (a little younger, actually). And then explain to me how the new Stones album could debut in the top five. Geezers with money. In pop, they can still make things happen.

By: Marcello

Marcello — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 09:06:00 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 01:59:00 +0000

The above comments are mine. Sorry I didn’t sign it.

Doctor Mod

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 00:51:00 +0000

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.

By: Frank Kogan

Frank Kogan — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:25:00 +0000

“Strangers, in the Night” (comma added to title)

By: Frank Kogan

Frank Kogan — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:24:00 +0000

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

By: Frank Kogan

Frank Kogan — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 18:23:00 +0000

Rape, murder!
It?s just a glance away
It?s just a glance away

By: Alan Connor

Alan Connor — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:38:00 +0000

“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.