in March 1970 Sinatra released ‘Watertown’, a concept album that tells the story of a breakup. ‘La voz’ embodies a simple, hard-working man abandoned by his wife, who leaves him with his two children in a small provincial town to go in search of a different life. At 54 years old and with a career like no other, Frank Sinatra had sung many heartbreak stories. But never one like this. “The culmination of 31 years of experience. And a life lived to the fullest.
When it seemed that ‘the man’ had reached its peak, a new milestone arrived, announced a radio commercial of the time. But what followed was a commercial flop unprecedented in Sinatra’s career. Of the 450,000 copies that were manufactured, only 35,000 were shipped. A year later, Sinatra announced that he was retiring from show business. He came back in 1973 in style, but he never wanted to know anything more about those songs. Neither he, nor his record company, nor his public. ‘Watertown’ was left as a false step, almost an accident in his career. The album with which Frank Sinatra wanted to catch the train of modernity and failed. And yet ‘Watertown’, which tells the saddest story ever sung by Sinatra, today sounds more contemporary than many of his most acclaimed albums and has acquired the category of cult album.
Story of an abandonment
The new edition of ‘Watertown’, remixed and remastered from the original recordings, contains some alternate takes and little else. Everything was important on the 1970 album. In songs that seem like letters that will never reach their destination, the protagonist reveals the story little by little. It takes place in Watertown, a small town that could be anyone and where, as the lyrics of the song that gives the album its title say, nothing ever happens and “the perfect crime is to kill time.” The protagonist tells that she, Elizabeth, said goodbye to him without tears, without shouting, in a cafeteria. That on good days he manages to forget that she’s gone, but then, without bad faith, some neighbor reminds him. “You need company,” they tell him.
Of the 450,000 copies that were manufactured, only 35,000 were shipped. A year later, Sinatra announced that he was retiring from show business.
explain in ‘Michael & Peter’, one of the most shocking songs on the album, that her son Michael looks more like her every day. But she also tells him that if she had known what she knows now -an infidelity?-, she would love her just the same. “What happened, happened, I know everything and we can start over”, she sings between imploring and magnanimous in ‘What’s now is now’. Sinatra forgives himself and forgives her. He explains to Elizabeth that he misses her. That he tries to understand her, that just yesterday he bought a small house in the country. And that above all, he hopes that he will come back. But Elizabeth does not return. Her last song, ‘The train’, ends with Sinatra at the station, looking for her among the passengers getting off the train. A man alone, disoriented, overcome by a world that he no longer recognizes. It is one of the most devastating images on the album. And probably, from all of Sinatra’s discography.
‘Watertown’ tells the story of a broken man. But it is also the portrait of a crumbling social order
‘Watertown’ tells the story of a broken man. But it is also the portrait of a crumbling social order. In 1970, a woman abandoning her children was an aberration for America that had grown up worshiping Sinatra. An amendment to the entire post-war American family model. It was probably too much even for Sinatra himself, who still had the courage to put himself in the shoes of a character that was not his own and explore it to its ultimate consequences. Although at 54 he was no longer the singer he was, his interpretation of the simple man with small ambitions is masterful.
Frankie Valli’s fault
In 1969, The Four Seasons, the pop group in which Frankie Valli sang, released their strangest album, ‘The genuine imitation life gazette’. A conceptual album with a psychedelic tone that made a satire of North American society. Valli, an admirer and friend of Sinatra, suggested that he record something similar. In fact, Sinatra had been a pioneer in this field. Some of his most acclaimed albums of the ’50s, ‘In the wee small hours’ and ‘Songs for swingin’ lovers’, were collections of songs carefully chosen and arranged to explore a particular mood. But what Valli had in mind was something else, a concept album in keeping with the times marked by the audacity of The Beatles or The Beach Boys. He proposed to Sinatra that he try out with the team that had composed the most daring album of The Four Seasons, the young and unknown Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes. And Sinatra agreed.
What Gaudio and Holmes gave him was a demo with ten songs plus another bonus dedicated to Billie Holiday, ‘Lady day’, which was not part of the ‘Watertown’ story. Sinatra, a great admirer of the singer, wanted to record it anyway, although it was left out of the original album. The music was recorded in New York and Sinatra then sang for it in Los Angeles, something he barely did throughout his career. If there was one thing Sinatra hated, it was recording alone in the studio with headphones. And yet he also accepted. Among those ten songs there was none that smelled like ‘hit’. The melancholic, somber and extravagant orchestral arrangements were rare for a Sinatra record. The cover, with a drawing that evokes the melancholy of that imaginary city, too. Sinatra’s face, stamped on the cover of all his albums, was nowhere to be found. Nothing on ‘Watertown’ was what was expected from an album of his. He did not satisfy his usual fans nor did he, of course, reach the rock public, which was into other things. And unintentionally, the commercial failure of ‘Watertown’ is a perfect reflection of the story that is told within. A man trapped in a town that is the past, unable to understand the new times, while the future recedes.
Sinatra, by Albert Serra?
Circumstances didn’t help either. The plan was to promote ‘Watertown’ with a television special in which Sinatra would sing the entire album. But by then Sinatra had walked away from the cameras – his film career was in free fall – and the project was forgotten. Although perhaps one day the story will reach the big screen. Filmmaker Albert Serra is one of many fans who in recent decades have discovered in ‘Watertown’ what Sinatra’s audiences didn’t know or couldn’t see in his day.
The director, whose latest film ‘Pacifiction’ hits theaters in September, discovered the disc twenty years ago. He was captivated by its sound and its evocative power, and he thought of turning it into a film. “History is very important, of course,” Serra tells this newspaper. “But what interested me most were the atmospheres. It has very powerful atmospheres. I wrote an entire script for the album, with real settings. I don’t rule out that one day it can be shot.”