Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". He released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatra's professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of The Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958) and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).
Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and released the tracks "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way". After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968's collaboration with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later and recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and reached success in 1980 with "New York, New York". Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998.
Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and received critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he became associated with playing detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, though before Kennedy's death Sinatra's alleged Mafia connections led to his being snubbed.
While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had an impressive understanding of it, and he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his dress sense and performing presence, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes". Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century", and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.
Sinatra died with his wife at his side at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on May 14, 1998, aged 82, after a heart attack. Sinatra had ill health during the last few years of his life, and was frequently hospitalized for heart and breathing problems, high blood pressure, pneumonia and bladder cancer. He was further diagnosed as having dementia. He had made no public appearances following a heart attack in February 1997. Sinatra's wife encouraged him to "fight" while attempts were made to stabilize him, and his final words were, "I'm losing." Sinatra's daughter, Tina, later wrote that she and her sister, Nancy, had not been notified of their father's final hospitalization, and it was her belief that "the omission was deliberate. Barbara would be the grieving widow alone at her husband's side." The night after Sinatra's death, the lights on the Empire State Building in New York City were turned blue, the lights at the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed in his honor, and the casinos stopped spinning for a minute.
Sinatra's funeral was held at the Roman Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, California, on May 20, 1998, with 400 mourners in attendance and thousands of fans outside. Gregory Peck, Tony Bennett, and Sinatra's son, Frank Jr., addressed the mourners, who included many notable people from film and entertainment. Sinatra was buried in a blue business suit with mementos from family members—cherry-flavored Life Savers, Tootsie Rolls, a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a pack of Camel cigarettes, a Zippo lighter, stuffed toys, a dog biscuit, and a roll of dimes that he always carried—next to his parents in section B-8 of Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.
His close friends Jilly Rizzo and Jimmy Van Heusen are buried nearby. The words "The Best Is Yet to Come", plus "Beloved Husband & Father" are imprinted on Sinatra's grave marker. Significant increases in recording sales worldwide were reported by Billboard in the month of his death.
I Won't Dance
Frank Sinatra Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I won't dance, don't ask me.
I won't dance, madame, with you.
My heart won't let me do things they should do.
You know what? You're lovely.
You know what, you're lovely. You know what, you're so lovely.
And, oh what you do to me.
I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor.
When you dance, you're charming and you're gentle,
'Specially when you do the Continental.
But this feeling isn't purely mental,
For heaven rest us, I'm not asbestos.
And that's why I won't dance, why should I?
I won't dance, how could I?
I won't dance. Merci beaucoup.
I know that music leads the way to romance,
So if I hold you in my arms, I won't dance.
I won't dance, don't ask me.
I won't dance, don't ask me.
I won't dance, madame, with you.
My heart won't let my feet do things they want to do.
You know what? You're lovely, ring-a-ding,ding, you're lovely.
And, oh what you do to me.
I'm like an ocean wave that's bumped on the shore;
I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor.
When you dance, you're charming and you're gentle,
'Specially when you do the Continental.
But this feeling isn't purely mental,
For heaven rest us, I'm not asbestos.
And that's why I won't dance.I won't dance.
I won't dance. Merci beaucoup.
I know that music leads the way to romance,
So if I hold you in my arms,
I won't dance!
The song I Won't Dance by Frank Sinatra is a classic example of a man trying to resist the charms of a woman. The first two lines of the song undermine the whole idea of the song with their repetition. The singer repeats that he won't dance but the woman he is speaking to should know that he finds her lovely. This shows that he is not entirely convinced by his own words and is trying to convince himself to resist her.
The imagery of an ocean wave that's been bumped onto the shore further accentuates his sense of helplessness. He is completely taken aback by her and cannot control his emotions. When she dances, she is charming and gentle, especially when she performs the Continental dance form, which was popularized in the 1950s. Despite all this charming behavior that she exhibits, he still tries to resist her advances.
He then goes on to say that this feeling is not just mental – he is genuinely attracted to her but cannot bring himself to dance with her. His final words, "So if I hold you in my arms, I won't dance", show that he is not immune to her charms, but he is trying to resist them as best he can.
Line by Line Meaning
I won't dance, don't ask me.
I'm sorry, but I won't dance with you. Please don't ask me again.
I won't dance, madame, with you.
I apologize, but I am not interested in dancing with you, madame.
My heart won't let me do things they should do.
Unfortunately, my heart is not allowing me to engage in activities expected of me, such as dancing with you.
You know what, you're lovely. And, oh what you do to me.
I must admit, you are lovely and you have an undeniable effect on me.
I'm like an ocean wave that's bumped on the shore; I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor.
Your presence is so overwhelming that I feel like a wave coming into shore and completely befuddled on the dance floor.
When you dance, you're charming and you're gentle, 'Specially when you do the Continental.
I have noticed that you are gracefully charming, especially when you perform the Continental dance.
But this feeling isn't purely mental, For heaven rest us, I'm not asbestos.
This reaction I'm having to you is not just in my mind; it is very real. I'm human, I have feelings and I can be hurt.
And that's why I won't dance, why should I? I won't dance, how could I? I won't dance.
Based on my earlier points and the way I feel about you, it's best if I avoid dancing with you altogether.
Merci beaucoup. I know that music leads the way to romance, So if I hold you in my arms, I won't dance.
Thank you for your understanding. While I acknowledge that music often leads to romance, even holding you in my arms won't make me dance.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Capitol CMG Publishing, RESERVOIR MEDIA MANAGEMENT INC
Written by: Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern, Jimmy Mc Hugh, Oscar Hammerstein Ii, Otto Harbach
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Mike
on The Lady Is A Champ
She gets too hungry for dinner at eight
She can't eat late and stay up all night, because unlike society types, she has to get up in the morning.
She likes the theatre and never comes late
She cares more about seeing the play than being seen making an entrance.
She never bothers with people she'd hate
Her friends are friends, not social trophies.
Doesn't like crap games with barons or earls
While barrns and earls probably don't play craps, she associates with friends, not people to be seen with.
Won't go to Harlem in ermine and pearls
She doesn't "slum", the practice of the rich in the 30's, when the song was written, of touring poor neighborhoods dressed in rich clothes to "tut, tut" about the deplorable conditions, and congratulate each other for "caring about the poor"
Won't dish the dirt with the rest of the girls
Doesn't trade gossip for acceptance among an in-crowd
She likes the free, fresh wind in her hair
She cares more about how her hair feels than conforming with current hair fashions
Hates California, it's cold and it's damp
Since most of California is noticeably warmer and / or drier than New York, where the play the song was written for is set, this is probably a facetious excuse to like what she likes.
And she won't go to Harlem in Lincoln's or Ford's
Another reference to slumming, but facetious, since Lincolns and Fords were middle-class, not luxury brands when the lyric was written
Anonymous
on Try a Little Tenderness
Here are the correct lyrics
Try A Little Tenderness - Frank Sinatra - Lyrics
Oh she may be weary
Women do get wearied
Wearing that same old shabby dress
And when she’s weary
You try a little tenderness
You know she’s waiting
Just anticipating things she’ll may never possess
While she is without them
Try just a little bit of tenderness
It’s not just sentimental
She has her grieve and her care
And the words that soft and gentle
Makes it easier to bear
You wont regret it
Women don't forget it
Love is their whole happiness
And it’s all so easy
Try a little tenderness
Musical Interlude
And, it’s all so easy
Try a little tenderness
Daniel
on The Way You Look Tonight
I met Frank Jr. in Las Vegas, a real gentleman. RIP you both.
Giorgi Khutashvili
on Theme from New York, New York
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