Frank Sinatra "I'm losing it", When Frank Sinatra died at the age of 82 last month his family said that his last words were, “I’m losing it.” He may have felt life slipping away, but popular culture is a different case entirely: for modern listeners, Sinatra never lost “It.”
From his days as a young crooner enticing bobby-soxers in the 1940s to his gaudy celebrity as king of the swingers and friend of the Kennedys in the 1960s to his crabby, punchy later years, Sinatra always embodied the spirit of Cool.
Hated by some for his misogyny and thuggishness, loved by many for his surprisingly tender singing, Francis Albert Sinatra will always be remembered for the dapper, charming and entirely cynical image he maintained – one which went hand in glove with the allegations of Mafia connections which trailed him all his life.
That image, tainted in recent years by the increasing sourness of Sinatra’s diatribes against his critics, was already being rehabilitated even before the crooner’s death on May 14. The Showtime cable-television network is planning a film about the ‘Rat Pack’, Sinatra’s hard-drinking collection of friends, with Ray Liotta portraying Sinatra himself; meanwhile, top director Martin Scorsese intends to come out with a picture about Sinatra’s Rat Back buddy, Dean Martin.
More importantly, the swinging music which Sinatra epitomised – and which was the antithesis of the rock and roll music he despised – is itself making a comeback among young listeners tired of guitar-based rock acts.
Recent hit groups have included the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, a slick band of pseudo-swingers whose new song, ‘Zoot Suit Riot’, is a staple on MTV; and the Squirrel Nut Zippers, who combined Sinatra’s lounge-music tackiness with Cab Calloway’s jazz style on last year’s ‘Hell’, an improbable hit song about damnation.
Many of the new groups borrow heavily from Sinatra’s cool posture: hat tipped to the side, jacket hanging off a shoulder, and either a martini or a cigarette in hand. The singer’s brash attitude, mocked as ‘passe’ for decades, has taken on a new meaning in a more gender-sensitive and health-conscious era. His his tough-but-tender image is now perceived as an antidote to political correctness and the Sinatra being celebrated today is aggressive, ironic and more than a little sleazy.
Sometimes modern Sinatra fans show that appreciation in a reasonably fun way, as in the 1996 movie ‘Swingers’, in which actor Vince Vaughan offers laughably outdated dating tips while he fetishes the jargon (“You’re so money.”) and Las Vegas obsessions of the Rat Pack. At other times – as when several rappers recently defended their glamourisation of misogyny and Mob violence by pointing to Sinatra’s own shabby career – the rehabilitation of Sinatra has seemed simply defensive.
Of course, Sinatra’s critics also often seem unfair. Michael Kelly, a conservative columnist, blamed Sinatra for nothing less than the corruption of American culture. “The new cool man that Sinatra defined was a very different creature,” Kelly wrote in the Washington Post. “Cool said the old values were for suckers. Cool was looking out for Number One always … Cool was not virtuous; it reveled in vice. Before cool, being good was still hip; after cool, only being bad was.”
Much of Kelly’s clearly overstated blame is based, as are most defenses of Sinatra, not on the singer’s prolific (and accomplished) recording career, but on his prominence as someone whose celebrity defined virtually the entire post-Second World War era.
Sinatra’s critics love to pick apart the difference between his songs – sometimes unusually gentle and vulnerable – and his sexist swagger; or between his support for civil rights and John F. Kennedy’s liberalism in the 1960s and his surly shift towards the conservatism of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan in later years. His defenders, meanwhile, try to recapture the frail, idealistic Sinatra over whom the bobby-soxers swooned, while conceding that their gangster-linked idol was far from perfect.
Of course, for the modern-day swingers seeking to bring back the days of the Rat Pack, both versions are beside the point: They love Sinatra, as well as modern rap stars like the late Tupac Shakur, for embodying contradictions – being both tender and tough, the underdog and the predator, the idealist and the cynic.
Rappers like Tupac concoct different personas and stage names to contain those contradictions – but for the man known as “The Voice”, the “Chairman of the Board” and “Ol’ Blue Eyes”, there could never be too many alter egos. For that reason, it’s likely that the celebration and evaluation of the various Frank Sinatras is just beginning – and may soon overwhelm the career of the poised crooner who sang songs like ‘Witchcraft’ and ‘The Summer Wind’ arguably better than anyone ever will in the future.
