Shining Simplicity
Watertown (album) by Frank Sinatra - Blast from the Past Sunday
No one does it better than Sinatra. This isn’t an opinion, but a fact. Anyone who’s heard even one single second of Frank Sinatra’s music will be inclined to agree. (If you don’t, well, then I just feel sorry for you.)
I go way back with Frank, having listened to his music since I was very young. Still to this day, hearing his voice can make me feel instantly at home, no matter the situation. Something else that makes me feel at home is a good old concept album. A collection of songs based on a very loose or very specific storyline has the power to capture my undivided attention, often leaving me thinking about it for weeks after I hear it.
I’ve heard my fair share of concept albums. Classics such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall or The Who’s Tommy are ones I often go back to. However, I don’t think a concept album has ever hit me as hard or stuck in my mind as much as Frank Sinatra’s 1970 not-so-classic Watertown.
The setup is easy to grasp— woman leaves man for life in city, man is sad that wife has left him, man writes letters to wife reminiscing about the past, and so on and so forth and what have you. Sounds simple, right? There’s so many ways that this album could have been boring and bland. But Watertown shines in it’s simplicity, and the emotion can be heard in all layers of the music. The orchestral arrangements, a longtime staple of any of Sinatra’s works, are really brought to the forefront of the album, and the instruments almost rival his knack for conveying emotion!
It’s clear from the beginning album that you can’t be totally sure what to expect. The first track, called “Watertown” (what a surprise) does a great job of setting the scene with apprehensive bass and a slamming piano chord to start things off. Before this album, I had never heard of the actual Watertown, but after hearing this song, it feels like I have a good grasp on what it’s like, or at least what it’s like in the album. It also expertly uses train noises to put you right there with the narrator. Furthermore, the end of the song employs one of my personal favorite musical ideas — the teasing of the next song before you actually hear it. I love nothing more than to listen to an album in order and find myself saying “Hey, I heard that before!!” to a brand new song.
If you only have time for one song on Watertown, I implore you to take a listen to “Goodbye (She Quietly Says)”. Just the very title of that song sends a shiver down my spine! I would and WILL go as far to say that this may be one of, if not the most perfect song to be written and performed. Everything, from the swelling orchestral excerpts, to Sinatra’s powerful delivery, to the absolutely devastating lyrics make this song incredibly hard to explain and yet exactly the type that I find the need to explain to anyone who will listen. The picture it paints, of the narrator sitting in a cafe with cheesecake and apple pie, sitting across from someone who he begs for another try, someone who “reaches out across the table/looks at me/and quietly says/goodbye”. The song is nothing but a rumination on a single moment, a single word, with the narrator not able to say anything but “goodbye” again and again and again. The fact that Watertown has this damn near perfect track so early in the album is yet another reason to continue on listening to it.
The other song that I feel has a similar impact as “Goodbye (She Quietly Says)” is “Michael and Peter”, the fourth track on the album. This is Sinatra at his best, emotion-wise, in my opinion. This guy really knows how to convey his feelings, with just a slight change in voice volume! The song also features a few of the funniest lyrics on the album, with the narrator commenting “she sure needs a man” when referring to his wife’s mother helping him out, as well as “but he’s so old”, which is made even funnier because old is held out and Sinatra really drives the “so” part home. But this song also features one of the lyric “as far as anyone can tell/the sun will rise tomorrow”, which often comes into my mind when things get tough.
Another highlight of the album is “What a Funny Girl (You Used to Be)”. I gotta take a moment to just draw your attention to the increase in parentheses usage on this album’s song titles. Often they’re used to enhance the name, add some context. By adding (She Quietly Says) onto “Goodbye”, it’s quickly understood that this is a somber song, one that will be painful and sad. But this one, with (You Used to Be), added onto “What a Funny Girl” is kinda cruel. The main lyrics, when read on their own, seem to be a sweet remembrance of the past happiness of the broken relationship at the core of Watertown. But when Sinatra’s numb sounding delivery combines with the backhanded lyrics, it’s clear that this song is the “oof” kind. I mean, the fact that this “you used to be” addendum is repeated three times at the end of the song is equivalent to stabbing a knife and twisting it. It really shows how the narrator isn’t fully in the right, that his anger is valid but also prominent. I think it’s an interesting song to really think about.
The rest of the album is pretty good, but I must say that the very last track, “The Train” is the best ending track of an album to ever exist. I won’t spoil anything, as this is a story-driven album after all, but I can tell you that after hearing the ending for the first time, Watertown was immediately solidified as perfection in my mind. It’s a masterclass in lyrics, emotional tone, and just how to write a great song in general. It’s a sort of “blink and you’ll miss it” moment, as the song never changes musical tone. “The Train” is just a great ending to a great album.
Watertown was never a critical hit. In fact, it never even hit the Billboard 200. I’m not sure why, because I think Sinatra’s work is fabulous on this album, and that the songs are some of the best ever written in general. But you have to remember that this was 1970 — the Beatles had just broken up, everything was changing. Frank Sinatra had been a constant for so many years, and while he was reliable, things were just different. This knowledge gives Watertown even more of a special feeling, a lonely feeling, the sort of overlooked quality that makes an album feel more important to listen to. I like to think that this is one of the most human albums ever made, and I also like the idea that everyone will take different things from it. Watertown is an album that will leave a mark on all of its listeners, whether that mark be large or small, in the heart or in the head. Watertown is for the observers of the world, those who enjoy hearing other people’s stories and going on mental tangents about them. While it is just an album, it kind of feels like a place to me, a place I often return to when I need to feel something, or just when I have thirty three minutes and thirty three seconds to kill. It’s a place that I can languish in, a place I can just sit back and watch, and most of all, it’s a place where I feel, strangely (or not so strangely) at home.
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