January 28, 2025 • 28 mins
This next entry in the Concept Album series focuses on Frank Sinatra's Watertown, a brilliant album misunderstood in its day, but now rightfully considered one of his greatest. HP delves into the folks responsible for the album's creation and production, and offers insight into why it's become such a cherished part of his collection.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
The legendary Frank Sinatra made a career out of putting
out so called concept albums. However, these are not concept
albums a llah The Who's Tommy.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Or Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Those records were more akin to opera in their method
of telling a story through music and lyrics, hence the
term rock opera. Sinatra's concept albums were more literally conceptual.
They were albums unified by a central concept or mood
rather than a literal story. But he did record one
album with an actual story, much like those aforementioned rock albums. Tonight,
(00:58):
I'd like to examine this album, this outlier in Sinatra's catalog.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Join me as we take a trip to Watertown. Hello,
listeners to.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Another special episode of Noise Junkies. I'm hp this episode,
I'll be discussing the nineteen seventy album Watertown, produced by
Bob Gaudio and co written by Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes.
I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I was never that much
of a Sinatra fan. I recognize his place in the
pantheon of pop music and respect all that he brought
(01:37):
to the art form, but it always seemed like old music.
To me, the sound of Sinatra's records didn't captivate me.
It sounded old and low fi to me. When I
was first getting into music, Frank Sinatra was always either
a really old looking guy performing standards on TV, or
he was in old documentaries a then youthful guy singing
(01:59):
jazz pop in fuzzy kinescopes that I couldn't relate to either.
But all that changed when Watertown was reissued in twenty
twenty two with a fresh, new remix and additional bonus tracks.
I've always been a sucker for a deluxe reissue. I
can't tell you how many older albums I've been able
to discover because a record company took the time and
(02:21):
effort to give it an old spit shine and re release.
Frank Sinatra's career was at a bit of a crossroads
in the late sixties. His brand of crooning was out
of step with the rock music of the hippie generation.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
His record sales were low.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
He'd already made a residency at the Sands Casino in Vegas,
which in itself could be taken as a sign that
his career was slowing down. In an effort to reverse
his fortunes, he decided to enlist Bob Gaudio to produce
his next album, Who's Bob Gaudio? You ask, well, I
guarantee you've heard music that he's written, produced, or performed.
(03:00):
As a founding member of the Four Seasons, he co
wrote the majority of their big hits Sherry, Can't Take
My Eyes off of You, Big Girls, Don't Cry, Walk
Like a Man December nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh What a Night?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All were written or co written by Bob Gaudio, and
for other artists well, he wrote the Sun Ain't Gonna
Shine Anymore for the Walker.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Brothers Lonely.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's the.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Later Gaudio would produce You Don't bring Me Flowers for
Neil Diamond and Barber streisand you.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Don't bring me flowers, you don't sing me love songs.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Yeah, let's talk to me anymore. When I come through
the door at the end of the.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Day, I remember where you couldn't wait to love me,
used to hate to leave me, love after.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Love me, Laden.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
When it's good Pi, You're feeling all right?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Job after all? Unto love.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And you don't goingly flower say.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Gaudio was quite the music heavy hitter, and with his
list of credits. It's easy to see why Old Blue
Eyes would want to work with him. However, I'm not
sure if Sinatra was really prepared for what Gaudio and
his writing partner Jake Holmes were going to present to him.
You see, Gaudio was going through an interesting phase in
his own career. Spurred on by the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album,
(05:53):
Gaudio sought to move the Four Seasons into the realm
of socially conscious music. One night, he went to the
Bitter End, a club in Greenwich Village, and saw a
folk singer named Jake Holmes performing. Gaudio was so taken
with Holmes and his music he decided to collaborate with
him on the next Four Seasons record. That record would
turn out to be nineteen sixty nine's The Genuine Imitation
(06:16):
Life Gazette. Rather than the customary Four Seasons love songs,
these songs would comprise a concept album that tackled subjects
like racial tension and war, a far cry from Sherry Baby.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
Indeed, chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
People rubbing elbows but never touching up, taking all their
masks revealing still another guy.
Speaker 8 (07:12):
Genuine Imitation people buy un happiness.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And many you're fattious funds.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Everybody's doing what everybody's done. You count on lots of people,
you can only.
Speaker 9 (07:52):
Count to one.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Genuine imitation line.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
In Much of the credit for this shift and focus
must go to Jake Holmes. Like Bob Gaudio, you've probably
already heard tunes that Jake Holmes had a hand in writing.
As a commercial jingle writer, he wrote the I'm a
Pepper jingle, which was omnipresent in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
I drink doctor pepper and am prouder.
Speaker 10 (08:31):
I'm out of an original crowd, and you look around.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
These days, it seems to be a doctor Pepper craze.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
She's a pepper?
Speaker 6 (08:43):
Where a pepper?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Where'd you like to be a pep?
Speaker 9 (08:45):
Two? He's a pepper, Give you two, doctor pepper.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Pepper two, be a pepper three, doctor Pemper.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He also wrote the US Army recruitment jingle be all
that you can be.
Speaker 10 (09:04):
Your reaching deep inside you, Oh the things you've never known.
It's been tough, rough going what you haven't gone long.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
We do more before at nine am than most people
do all day.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Hey for a sergeant, good morning.
Speaker 11 (09:27):
Can do it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But most notoriously, he wrote a little song called Dazed
and Confused. Some of you are saying, wasn't that written
by Jimmy Page for Led Zeppelin's first album Well No.
The original version of Dazed appeared on Holmes's nineteen sixty
seven album The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes.
Speaker 10 (10:04):
I'm dazed and confused as its days ago, Robbie and choosed,
but I just like to know. Give me a clue
as to where I am at.
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Feel like a.
Speaker 10 (10:20):
Mouse and you act like a cat.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
I'm dazed and confused, hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I'm being amused.
Speaker 10 (10:34):
I've been better off letter and stand.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
A cheese, and I'm starting to crack.
Speaker 10 (10:42):
You're out to get me your arm on the right track.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
In August nineteen sixty seven, Holmes opened for the Yardbirds,
Page's first band, at a gig in Greenwich Village. According
to Holmes, this is where Page first became aware of
the song. It was later released on the live album
Yardbirds sixty eight, credited to Jimmy Page.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Alone, I'm dazed and confused? Does it stay?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Is it gold?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Give me a two?
Speaker 9 (11:40):
I just want to know, Give me a two as
to elmad if you like a mouse sound.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
You wag like a cap? How these and confuses this
(12:09):
to say?
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Is it go us?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And I think us you would go com on Bamie.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I'm done to bag.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
You had to get me.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Eventually, Page recorded the song again with his then new
group Led Zeppelin, again credited solely to Paige. And this
is likely the version that you've heard, been days.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
And confused for so long. It's not true.
Speaker 12 (13:06):
Walt a warm and never bargain for you. Lots of
people talking fuel them.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
No soul love a woman was created and the low
(13:37):
you coffuse telling all of your life.
Speaker 12 (13:43):
Run, says the baby alone on the hypnottrack Slee a Baby,
I don't know where you're been Alla love your name
come Aga.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Over the years, Holmes fought in court for his songwriting credit,
eventually settling with Page for an undisclosed amount in twenty eleven.
The version on the first Zeppelin album is now credited
to Page, inspired by Jake Holmes. As for Sinatra, he
was likely feeling the pressure of his careers downward trajectory
by now, and some resentment at the new generation of
(14:29):
rock musicians coming up. He likely felt the urge to
prove his continued worth, to show that he could still
produce hits. Sinatra must have wanted the Bob Gaudio behind
those monster four Seasons hits. What he got was the
Gaudio who used his cachet to push the bounds of
ambition on the genuine Imitation Life Gazette. What Sinatra got
(14:52):
was Watertown. Watertown is a concept album that tells the
story of a man living in a small, boring town
called you guessed It, Watertown. The man's wife has left
him and their two young sons to seek a more
exciting life for herself in the big city. He spends
the entirety of the album describing his loneliness and longing
(15:14):
for her return. As sighted in Pitchfork's review of the reissue,
these are on the whole, the sparsest and saddest songs
that Sinatra ever sang. As I listened to the album
for the first time, I began to understand the Sinatra thing.
As he sings these lovely songs of heartbreak, longing, and hope,
(15:36):
you feel every drop of emotion in his delivery. One
of the things I cherish about Watertown is how down
to earth the whole story is there is no outsized drama,
no explosions of emotion or action, just a lonely, sad
guy who still loves the wife that left him and
their family and aches for her return. Take this line
(15:58):
from the second song on the album Goodbye.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
She quietly says.
Speaker 13 (16:02):
There is no big explosion, no tempest in the team.
The world does not stop turning around, there's no big tragedy.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Sitting in a coffee shop.
Speaker 13 (16:20):
With cheese cake and some aplebad, she reaches out across
the table, looks at me and quietly says, football, goodbye, said.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
So easily, Lady.
Speaker 13 (16:44):
Goodbye, said so quietly, football.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Football bootboard.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
The simplicity of those lyrics the banality of the setting.
While the narrator's world is upbended, breakups seldom happen like
they do in the movies or TV.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They usually happen in the.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Midst of the mundane. While the rest of the world
goes on about their business. A man's world crumbles quietly
over cheesecake and apple pie. The matter of fact details
of life underpin the entirety of Watertown. Throughout the album,
the narrator expresses himself through what appeared to be a
series of letters.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
To his wife.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
In the song Michael and Peter, small details of the
narrator's day to day struggles creep into the lyric. Sinatra
mentions an old man who mows the lawn who can't
help asking where his wife is gone.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's such a little detail.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
But exactly the kind of casual encounter that eats away
at the narrator each and every day.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Him became to cut the long.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Can.
Speaker 14 (18:05):
He asked me where you'd gone? I can't tell you
all at times he's been told, but he.
Speaker 13 (18:19):
So yes, That's all the news I've got today. Please,
That's all the news that I can say.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
Maybe soon the words will come my way.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
To my One thing I find remarkable about the depiction
of Watertown's narrator is the utter lack of anger in
his attitude towards his wife and her abandoning the family.
Through their words, Gaudio and Holmes ain't a poignant picture
of a man who dearly loves and misses his wife
(19:04):
and might even understand somewhat the reasons why she made
her decision. In the song I would be in love Anyway,
the narrator admits that, even knowing that she would someday
abandon their family. He would still not change a thing.
Speaker 13 (19:20):
If I knew that you, If I knew you wouldn't stay.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
I would be in love anyway.
Speaker 15 (19:39):
Sometimes not think about before.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Sometimes I think.
Speaker 14 (19:56):
If I knew what I know, I don't be I'd
ever change somehow.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
The song what a Funny Girl You Used to Be
helps flesh out the character of the narrator's wife with
a wry sense of humor. The lyric economically illustrates how
much the narrator loves his wife, those little quirks and
qualities that make up a loved one.
Speaker 15 (20:33):
You always had a thousand things to do, getting all
involved in something new, always some new recipe.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
The kitchen always look like World War thro What a
Funny Girl You.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Used to Be?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
In the penultimate song on the album, she Says. The
lyric suggests that the man has finally heard back from
his wife. It suggests that the wife might actually be
coming back home. But as hopeful as the lyric might be,
the melancholy music seems to underpin the hopelessness of his optimism.
Speaker 13 (21:39):
She says, the weather's cold. She says, there's been some ray.
She says, there's lots to see.
Speaker 11 (22:01):
She says, she hopes we're fine.
Speaker 14 (22:23):
The prize is horn, oh.
Speaker 11 (22:32):
The scar and she says, she says, She's coming home.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
The closing track on the album, The Train, sees the
narrator at the train station, eagerly awaiting the return of
his one, but he finally reveals in the lyric that
all those letters that he wrote to his wife were
never sent.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
He was just fooling himself.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
She was never going to come back, and in the
closing lyrics of the song, his tears mixed with the
rain as he watches the train leave once again.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
The crossing gate is coming down.
Speaker 13 (23:22):
I think I see the train. The sun has gone,
and now my face is wet with heavy rain. The
passengers for alan Town.
Speaker 11 (23:35):
And are gone.
Speaker 13 (23:39):
Train a slowly moved, but I can't see any.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
And I'm no for sure i'd recognize your fool.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And I'm no for sure recognize your fate.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Sinatra always struck me as larger than life, belting out
New York, New York to adoring crowds that he held
in the palm of his hand, just from his very presence.
The Sinatra of Watertown.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
However, was a revelation to me.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
His performance at turns his haunted, precise lonely, resigned, despondent,
above all vulnerable. That someone who seemed the giant to
me could allow himself to appear so fragile and vulnerable
helped me to understand what a masterful performer he was.
Throughout his recording career, Sinatra would record his vocals live
(24:45):
alongside the band. The music for Watertown, however, was recorded separately,
and Sinatra overdubbed his vocals later. This was the first
time Sinatra recorded his vocals in this fashion. I think
it suits his performance. Hard to imagine Sinatra alone in
a vocal booth performing to a pre recorded track, and
(25:05):
how that must have imparted a sense of isolation to
his vocals. Released in March nineteen seventy, Watertown was not
a success for Sinatra, garnering mixed reviews and poor sales,
reportedly the worst selling album of Sinatra's career. He would
announce his retirement the following year, but would eventually come
back to performing and recording in nineteen seventy four. Watertown
(25:30):
would ultimately be relegated to a footnote in Sinatra's career
until its eventual rediscovery and reappraisal. It's hard to pinpoint
a precise moment for this reappraisal. The best I can
tell is it started happening sometime around twenty twenty. Articles
started popping up online about Sinatra's lost masterpiece. Eventually, this
(25:51):
led to the deluxe reissue of Watertown that was the
catalyst for this episode. There was no question that Frank
Sinatra left behind an incredible legacy as a peerless performer
and a master interpreter. His music continues to be repackaged
and re released decades after his passing on May fourteenth,
(26:11):
nineteen ninety eight, at the age of eighty two. Each
new generation of listeners has new chances to discover his music.
I think we're so fortunate that we live in a
time where underdog albums like Watertown can be rescued from
obscurity and be listened to and reassessed the new. I
might have never encountered this album otherwise, for anyone who
(26:34):
thinks like I did, that they just don't get Frank Sinatra.
Give Watertown a try. It's well worth the journey. That's
it for this episode of Noise Junkies. Thank you for
indulging me once again. When I'm not listening to music,
you can find me elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
In the weirding Way Network.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I co host The Night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast
alongside midnight viewings fatherm Alone, and I'm an occasional guest
on The Culture Cast with Chris and I have a
bandcampsite hpmusic plays dot bandcamp dot com, featuring a brand
new album just released called Wired and Waiting. As always,
please feel free to write us, rate us, review us.
(27:14):
We'd love to hear from you in any manner you choose.
Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you again next time,
(28:01):
the
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Next
The legendary Frank Sinatra made a career out of putting
out so called concept albums. However, these are not concept
albums a llah The Who's Tommy.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Or Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Those records were more akin to opera in their method
of telling a story through music and lyrics, hence the
term rock opera. Sinatra's concept albums were more literally conceptual.
They were albums unified by a central concept or mood
rather than a literal story. But he did record one
album with an actual story, much like those aforementioned rock albums. Tonight,
(00:58):
I'd like to examine this album, this outlier in Sinatra's catalog.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Join me as we take a trip to Watertown. Hello,
listeners to.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Another special episode of Noise Junkies. I'm hp this episode,
I'll be discussing the nineteen seventy album Watertown, produced by
Bob Gaudio and co written by Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes.
I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I was never that much
of a Sinatra fan. I recognize his place in the
pantheon of pop music and respect all that he brought
(01:37):
to the art form, but it always seemed like old music.
To me, the sound of Sinatra's records didn't captivate me.
It sounded old and low fi to me. When I
was first getting into music, Frank Sinatra was always either
a really old looking guy performing standards on TV, or
he was in old documentaries a then youthful guy singing
(01:59):
jazz pop in fuzzy kinescopes that I couldn't relate to either.
But all that changed when Watertown was reissued in twenty
twenty two with a fresh, new remix and additional bonus tracks.
I've always been a sucker for a deluxe reissue. I
can't tell you how many older albums I've been able
to discover because a record company took the time and
(02:21):
effort to give it an old spit shine and re release.
Frank Sinatra's career was at a bit of a crossroads
in the late sixties. His brand of crooning was out
of step with the rock music of the hippie generation.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
His record sales were low.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
He'd already made a residency at the Sands Casino in Vegas,
which in itself could be taken as a sign that
his career was slowing down. In an effort to reverse
his fortunes, he decided to enlist Bob Gaudio to produce
his next album, Who's Bob Gaudio? You ask, well, I
guarantee you've heard music that he's written, produced, or performed.
(03:00):
As a founding member of the Four Seasons, he co
wrote the majority of their big hits Sherry, Can't Take
My Eyes off of You, Big Girls, Don't Cry, Walk
Like a Man December nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Oh What a Night?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
All were written or co written by Bob Gaudio, and
for other artists well, he wrote the Sun Ain't Gonna
Shine Anymore for the Walker.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Brothers Lonely.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It's the.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Later Gaudio would produce You Don't bring Me Flowers for
Neil Diamond and Barber streisand you.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Don't bring me flowers, you don't sing me love songs.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Yeah, let's talk to me anymore. When I come through
the door at the end of the.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Day, I remember where you couldn't wait to love me,
used to hate to leave me, love after.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Love me, Laden.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
When it's good Pi, You're feeling all right?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Job after all? Unto love.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And you don't goingly flower say.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Gaudio was quite the music heavy hitter, and with his
list of credits. It's easy to see why Old Blue
Eyes would want to work with him. However, I'm not
sure if Sinatra was really prepared for what Gaudio and
his writing partner Jake Holmes were going to present to him.
You see, Gaudio was going through an interesting phase in
his own career. Spurred on by the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album,
(05:53):
Gaudio sought to move the Four Seasons into the realm
of socially conscious music. One night, he went to the
Bitter End, a club in Greenwich Village, and saw a
folk singer named Jake Holmes performing. Gaudio was so taken
with Holmes and his music he decided to collaborate with
him on the next Four Seasons record. That record would
turn out to be nineteen sixty nine's The Genuine Imitation
(06:16):
Life Gazette. Rather than the customary Four Seasons love songs,
these songs would comprise a concept album that tackled subjects
like racial tension and war, a far cry from Sherry Baby.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
Indeed, chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
People rubbing elbows but never touching up, taking all their
masks revealing still another guy.
Speaker 8 (07:12):
Genuine Imitation people buy un happiness.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And many you're fattious funds.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Everybody's doing what everybody's done. You count on lots of people,
you can only.
Speaker 9 (07:52):
Count to one.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Genuine imitation line.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
In Much of the credit for this shift and focus
must go to Jake Holmes. Like Bob Gaudio, you've probably
already heard tunes that Jake Holmes had a hand in writing.
As a commercial jingle writer, he wrote the I'm a
Pepper jingle, which was omnipresent in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
I drink doctor pepper and am prouder.
Speaker 10 (08:31):
I'm out of an original crowd, and you look around.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
These days, it seems to be a doctor Pepper craze.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
She's a pepper?
Speaker 6 (08:43):
Where a pepper?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Where'd you like to be a pep?
Speaker 9 (08:45):
Two? He's a pepper, Give you two, doctor pepper.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Pepper two, be a pepper three, doctor Pemper.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He also wrote the US Army recruitment jingle be all
that you can be.
Speaker 10 (09:04):
Your reaching deep inside you, Oh the things you've never known.
It's been tough, rough going what you haven't gone long.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
We do more before at nine am than most people
do all day.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Hey for a sergeant, good morning.
Speaker 11 (09:27):
Can do it.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But most notoriously, he wrote a little song called Dazed
and Confused. Some of you are saying, wasn't that written
by Jimmy Page for Led Zeppelin's first album Well No.
The original version of Dazed appeared on Holmes's nineteen sixty
seven album The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes.
Speaker 10 (10:04):
I'm dazed and confused as its days ago, Robbie and choosed,
but I just like to know. Give me a clue
as to where I am at.
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Feel like a.
Speaker 10 (10:20):
Mouse and you act like a cat.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
I'm dazed and confused, hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
I'm being amused.
Speaker 10 (10:34):
I've been better off letter and stand.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
A cheese, and I'm starting to crack.
Speaker 10 (10:42):
You're out to get me your arm on the right track.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
In August nineteen sixty seven, Holmes opened for the Yardbirds,
Page's first band, at a gig in Greenwich Village. According
to Holmes, this is where Page first became aware of
the song. It was later released on the live album
Yardbirds sixty eight, credited to Jimmy Page.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Alone, I'm dazed and confused? Does it stay?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Is it gold?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Give me a two?
Speaker 9 (11:40):
I just want to know, Give me a two as
to elmad if you like a mouse sound.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
You wag like a cap? How these and confuses this
(12:09):
to say?
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Is it go us?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And I think us you would go com on Bamie.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I'm done to bag.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
You had to get me.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Eventually, Page recorded the song again with his then new
group Led Zeppelin, again credited solely to Paige. And this
is likely the version that you've heard, been days.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
And confused for so long. It's not true.
Speaker 12 (13:06):
Walt a warm and never bargain for you. Lots of
people talking fuel them.
Speaker 9 (13:14):
No soul love a woman was created and the low
(13:37):
you coffuse telling all of your life.
Speaker 12 (13:43):
Run, says the baby alone on the hypnottrack Slee a Baby,
I don't know where you're been Alla love your name
come Aga.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Over the years, Holmes fought in court for his songwriting credit,
eventually settling with Page for an undisclosed amount in twenty eleven.
The version on the first Zeppelin album is now credited
to Page, inspired by Jake Holmes. As for Sinatra, he
was likely feeling the pressure of his careers downward trajectory
by now, and some resentment at the new generation of
(14:29):
rock musicians coming up. He likely felt the urge to
prove his continued worth, to show that he could still
produce hits. Sinatra must have wanted the Bob Gaudio behind
those monster four Seasons hits. What he got was the
Gaudio who used his cachet to push the bounds of
ambition on the genuine Imitation Life Gazette. What Sinatra got
(14:52):
was Watertown. Watertown is a concept album that tells the
story of a man living in a small, boring town
called you guessed It, Watertown. The man's wife has left
him and their two young sons to seek a more
exciting life for herself in the big city. He spends
the entirety of the album describing his loneliness and longing
(15:14):
for her return. As sighted in Pitchfork's review of the reissue,
these are on the whole, the sparsest and saddest songs
that Sinatra ever sang. As I listened to the album
for the first time, I began to understand the Sinatra thing.
As he sings these lovely songs of heartbreak, longing, and hope,
(15:36):
you feel every drop of emotion in his delivery. One
of the things I cherish about Watertown is how down
to earth the whole story is there is no outsized drama,
no explosions of emotion or action, just a lonely, sad
guy who still loves the wife that left him and
their family and aches for her return. Take this line
(15:58):
from the second song on the album Goodbye.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
She quietly says.
Speaker 13 (16:02):
There is no big explosion, no tempest in the team.
The world does not stop turning around, there's no big tragedy.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Sitting in a coffee shop.
Speaker 13 (16:20):
With cheese cake and some aplebad, she reaches out across
the table, looks at me and quietly says, football, goodbye, said.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
So easily, Lady.
Speaker 13 (16:44):
Goodbye, said so quietly, football.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Football bootboard.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
The simplicity of those lyrics the banality of the setting.
While the narrator's world is upbended, breakups seldom happen like
they do in the movies or TV.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
They usually happen in the.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Midst of the mundane. While the rest of the world
goes on about their business. A man's world crumbles quietly
over cheesecake and apple pie. The matter of fact details
of life underpin the entirety of Watertown. Throughout the album,
the narrator expresses himself through what appeared to be a
series of letters.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
To his wife.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
In the song Michael and Peter, small details of the
narrator's day to day struggles creep into the lyric. Sinatra
mentions an old man who mows the lawn who can't
help asking where his wife is gone.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
It's such a little detail.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
But exactly the kind of casual encounter that eats away
at the narrator each and every day.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Him became to cut the long.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Can.
Speaker 14 (18:05):
He asked me where you'd gone? I can't tell you
all at times he's been told, but he.
Speaker 13 (18:19):
So yes, That's all the news I've got today. Please,
That's all the news that I can say.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
Maybe soon the words will come my way.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
To my One thing I find remarkable about the depiction
of Watertown's narrator is the utter lack of anger in
his attitude towards his wife and her abandoning the family.
Through their words, Gaudio and Holmes ain't a poignant picture
of a man who dearly loves and misses his wife
(19:04):
and might even understand somewhat the reasons why she made
her decision. In the song I would be in love Anyway,
the narrator admits that, even knowing that she would someday
abandon their family. He would still not change a thing.
Speaker 13 (19:20):
If I knew that you, If I knew you wouldn't stay.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
I would be in love anyway.
Speaker 15 (19:39):
Sometimes not think about before.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Sometimes I think.
Speaker 14 (19:56):
If I knew what I know, I don't be I'd
ever change somehow.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
The song what a Funny Girl You Used to Be
helps flesh out the character of the narrator's wife with
a wry sense of humor. The lyric economically illustrates how
much the narrator loves his wife, those little quirks and
qualities that make up a loved one.
Speaker 15 (20:33):
You always had a thousand things to do, getting all
involved in something new, always some new recipe.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
The kitchen always look like World War thro What a
Funny Girl You.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Used to Be?
Speaker 1 (21:19):
In the penultimate song on the album, she Says. The
lyric suggests that the man has finally heard back from
his wife. It suggests that the wife might actually be
coming back home. But as hopeful as the lyric might be,
the melancholy music seems to underpin the hopelessness of his optimism.
Speaker 13 (21:39):
She says, the weather's cold. She says, there's been some ray.
She says, there's lots to see.
Speaker 11 (22:01):
She says, she hopes we're fine.
Speaker 14 (22:23):
The prize is horn, oh.
Speaker 11 (22:32):
The scar and she says, she says, She's coming home.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
The closing track on the album, The Train, sees the
narrator at the train station, eagerly awaiting the return of
his one, but he finally reveals in the lyric that
all those letters that he wrote to his wife were
never sent.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
He was just fooling himself.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
She was never going to come back, and in the
closing lyrics of the song, his tears mixed with the
rain as he watches the train leave once again.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
The crossing gate is coming down.
Speaker 13 (23:22):
I think I see the train. The sun has gone,
and now my face is wet with heavy rain. The
passengers for alan Town.
Speaker 11 (23:35):
And are gone.
Speaker 13 (23:39):
Train a slowly moved, but I can't see any.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
And I'm no for sure i'd recognize your fool.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And I'm no for sure recognize your fate.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Sinatra always struck me as larger than life, belting out
New York, New York to adoring crowds that he held
in the palm of his hand, just from his very presence.
The Sinatra of Watertown.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
However, was a revelation to me.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
His performance at turns his haunted, precise lonely, resigned, despondent,
above all vulnerable. That someone who seemed the giant to
me could allow himself to appear so fragile and vulnerable
helped me to understand what a masterful performer he was.
Throughout his recording career, Sinatra would record his vocals live
(24:45):
alongside the band. The music for Watertown, however, was recorded separately,
and Sinatra overdubbed his vocals later. This was the first
time Sinatra recorded his vocals in this fashion. I think
it suits his performance. Hard to imagine Sinatra alone in
a vocal booth performing to a pre recorded track, and
(25:05):
how that must have imparted a sense of isolation to
his vocals. Released in March nineteen seventy, Watertown was not
a success for Sinatra, garnering mixed reviews and poor sales,
reportedly the worst selling album of Sinatra's career. He would
announce his retirement the following year, but would eventually come
back to performing and recording in nineteen seventy four. Watertown
(25:30):
would ultimately be relegated to a footnote in Sinatra's career
until its eventual rediscovery and reappraisal. It's hard to pinpoint
a precise moment for this reappraisal. The best I can
tell is it started happening sometime around twenty twenty. Articles
started popping up online about Sinatra's lost masterpiece. Eventually, this
(25:51):
led to the deluxe reissue of Watertown that was the
catalyst for this episode. There was no question that Frank
Sinatra left behind an incredible legacy as a peerless performer
and a master interpreter. His music continues to be repackaged
and re released decades after his passing on May fourteenth,
(26:11):
nineteen ninety eight, at the age of eighty two. Each
new generation of listeners has new chances to discover his music.
I think we're so fortunate that we live in a
time where underdog albums like Watertown can be rescued from
obscurity and be listened to and reassessed the new. I
might have never encountered this album otherwise, for anyone who
(26:34):
thinks like I did, that they just don't get Frank Sinatra.
Give Watertown a try. It's well worth the journey. That's
it for this episode of Noise Junkies. Thank you for
indulging me once again. When I'm not listening to music,
you can find me elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
In the weirding Way Network.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I co host The Night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast
alongside midnight viewings fatherm Alone, and I'm an occasional guest
on The Culture Cast with Chris and I have a
bandcampsite hpmusic plays dot bandcamp dot com, featuring a brand
new album just released called Wired and Waiting. As always,
please feel free to write us, rate us, review us.
(27:14):
We'd love to hear from you in any manner you choose.
Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you again next time,
(28:01):
the
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Next
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