1038 - Mojo 17. Frank Sinatra - Sings Only for the Lonely (1958)

Track Listing

1. Only The Lonely
2. Angel Eyes
3. What's New?
4. It's A Lonesome Old Town
5. Willow Weep For Me
6. Good-Bye
7. Blues In The Night
8. Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry
9. Ebb Tide
10. Spring Is Here
11. Gone With The Wind
12. One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)


Review

Another Frank Sinatra album which coming so near after Come Fly With Me perfectly illustrates the variety of register in Sinatra's career. If Come Fly With Me was a joyous album, Sings Only For the Lonely is nothing less than suicidal and relentlessly depressing.

Interestingly it is here that I think Sinatra is at his best. Of course the merit isn't exclusively his, the arrangements are particularly poignant here with Nelson Riddle drawing heavily from later Romantic and early impressionist music to create a feeling of depressive melancholy throughout.

There is no big brass behind Sinatra, only muted tones, strings and piano, the trumpets are muted, the music is depressing... it's not a very cheery album, but it is above all that an excellent album. Frank at his best but also his most non-commercial.

Track Highlights

1. Ebb Tide
2. Only The Lonely
3. One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
4. Gone With The Wind

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

At the time of the recording, Sinatra's divorce from Ava Gardner had been finalised, and the arranger of the album, Nelson Riddle, had recently suffered the deaths of his mother and daughter. Of these events Riddle remarked "If I can attach events like that to music...perhaps Only the Lonely was the result."

Ebb Tide: