Can’t stop listening to Watertown by Sinatra (1970) the past few weeks.
It’s more akin to Lou Reed’s Berlin than what most think of in regards to Sinatra.
Bob Gaudio (‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You’ - and many other Four Seasons hits - ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More’ by The Walker Brothers among his many songwriting credits) and Jake Holmes (‘Dazed and Confused,’ one of the many songs Jimmy Page plagiarized in his career) are the songwriters.
Simultaneously sounding like Scott Walker late-‘60s pop-rock and every bit Frank Sinatra, it is a Berlin-esque “concept” album (but much more focused and linear in its narrative than Berlin) that chronicles a small-town, middle class guy’s life after his wife leaves him and their two young boys to go live in the big city.
Insanely great music, tremendous lyrics, and an ‘actor’ as good as any at completely inhabiting the role to the marrow, Sinatra. Empathy, dignity, beauty, it’s all there. It’s amazing that he was so willing to make such a dramatic departure, and have it sound like not a departure at all. What an artist.
