Iggy Pop on Frank Sinatra’s ‘Only The Lonely’ (1958)

“Sinatra is American culture at its peak”

Iggy Pop

Frank Sinatra was one of my aunt’s favorite singers when I was little. She lived in the trailer next to ours, she was ill, and my Mom cared for her. And her only comfort in life was to sit next to her old, gigantic record-player and to listen to Frank’s music. I also remember how my father always sang along to Young At Heart in the car, he loved that song. When I was five or six, my parents asked me what I wanted to be in life. And I just said: „I wanna be a singer!“ That was Frank’s fault.

This record completely hits the mark for me emotionally. I didn’t even know it until I found it in a thrift store in the 80s. My favorite songs on it are Only The Lonely and One For My Baby. The first one I have covered for my album Après (2012), a very lonely piece to which I can relate very much. And One For My Baby I sing on my live-album Roadkill Rising (2011) in the Detroit Club Bookie’s- for a rock-audience that just won’t shut up. At some point I yelled at them: „Shut up, I’m trying to sing the goddam song here, okay!?” I always loved those two songs, but also the rest- especially Angel Eyes is tremendous. It’s with Nelson Riddle, the best arranger with whom Frank has worked. His arrangements are incredible, and Frank’s timing, the phrasing… otherworldly- you just can’t get your head around it. It’s A Lonesome Old Town is another piece that I would have loved to record.

The clowns make-up on the cover, which is more precisely the figure of Pierrot, is also appealing to me. By using the cliché of the sad clown, Frank shows his vulnerability. Generally, this is a loneliness-record. And the loneliness of city dwellers and travellers was many times greater in Frank’s times than today with smartphones and social media. When you were alone, you were alone. There’s a wonderful song by Marlene Dietrich, Allein In Einer Großen Stadt (‘Lonely In A Big City’), in which it says: “You live in a big city and yet you are so alone”. This fits Frank’s best movie appearance in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), in which he plays the junkie-musician Frankie Machine, a drummer who lives right next to a flickering neon sign in a shabby hotel room in a bad area. Believe me: I know how that feels.

Sinatra’s work takes place beyond all musical scenes and in a completely different sphere – without doubt he is the greatest, the personification of American culture at its peak. More is not possible. He belongs everywhere and nowhere, he is not really a blues singer, not really a crooner. A wanderer between the worlds. He described himself as a lounge singer, which is apt since America has an alcohol culture.

In any way, he was a master at the microphone. He was one of the first popular singers who worked almost exclusively with one microphone. Back then there were a lot of types like Rudy Vallée, whose fame was based not least on the fact that they went on stage without a microphone or with a megaphone and just sang out loud. But even back in his early days in Hoboken, Sinatra walked into the night clubs with an amplifier and a microphone and sang electrically. That gave him an advantage over his competitors.

But back to Only The Lonely. This album has also accompanied me through dark times- ‘carried’ would be the wrong word maybe. Sinatra and Miles Davis are both perfect for that. Both have this distinctive, warm voice, a voice always searching for something. It never resonates contentment. Even when Sinatra sings “I’ve got you under my skin”, there is a constant perplexity. On my new album (‘Free‘, 2019) this album has influenced my singing on songs such as Sonali, Page and Loves Missing insofar as I sing there in baritone. Loves Missing is about a woman who sits alone at home and has nobody to love, while her clock is ticking away. And in the end it gets revealed that she has been rejected before. Some people call this a torch song, others a bel canto. As good as I can, I have a try at a bit of bel canto there.

by Iggy Pop

(In collaboration with the German MINT Magazin, print edition published in MINT No. 30 – 08/19.
Photo: Mary Beth Koeth)