The crowd scenes strike a chord, entranced young faces and outstretched arms reaching for the figure on a stage, memories of Frank Sinatra stirring the emotions of a young generation coming of age in a dark wartime world.
They called it "swooning" then, young girls moved to tears by the promise of love and happy endings beyond the hard realities.
Barack Obama's ballad is political, not personal, but he is striking notes of hope and caring to a post-MTV generation that in the Bush era has heard only cynicism and despair. This time they are not only filling arenas and cheering but, by the evidence of recent primaries, going to the ballot box and voting.
It will take time for politicians to grasp that we are beyond demographics here into a realm where the old song-and-dance routines are not enough. Bush-Cheney-Rove replaced them with bitter dissonance and discord, but those sounds have run their course, too.
Now, a new generation that hasn't known any other kind of politics is hearing something new, the music of "Yes We Can," and their response to the rhythms is crossing over to older listeners.
If Obama can provide the right lyrics in the coming months, we may all be dancing to a new tune in November.
Showing posts with label Frank Sinatra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Sinatra. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Sinatra on Love Letters
The Postal Service unveiled a Frank Sinatra stamp this week on what would have been his 92nd birthday. It was, of course, first-class.
For better and occasionally for worse, Sinatra provided the sound track for our romantic lives as the Greatest Generation went to war, morphing from a scrawny crooner mobbed by teen-age girls to middle-aged sophisticate specializing in wised-up ballads of wounded rue to mellow old lover recalling the joys of yesteryear with swinging optimism ("The Best Is Yet to Come" is inscribed on his tombstone).
My own tastes ran more to Ella, Billie and Louis, but Frank Sinatra was a mesmerizing figure who held the 20th century stage with what Benjamin Schwarz in the Atlantic recently called "the most spectacular second act in American cultural history."
Washed up before 40, he came back to win an Academy Award by playing Maggio in "From Here to Eternity," an event celebrated by Mario Puzo in the "Godfather" scene of a Hollywood producer waking up with his horse's head under the covers to persuade him to cast Don Corleone's crooner.
Fictionalized as that may have been, Sinatra's mob ties were real, culminating in introducing a Mafia boss' girl friend to JFK during his White House years.
Sinatra was politically liberal back then but ended up by giving $4 million to the election campaign of his fellow actor Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Husband and lover of the most beautiful women of his time, from Ava Gardner to the widowed Lauren Bacall, he was at heart a guy's guy as shown in the Rat Pack goof-off movie, "Ocean's Eleven," a wretched thing that Steven Soderbergh remade in fine 21st century style.
We met once. At Truman Capote's Black-and-White Ball in 1966, a glum Sinatra, who left early for his friend Jilly's saloon, was watching his 21-year-old bride, Mia Farrow energetically lighting up the dance floor with one partner after another. When a beautiful woman suggested joining them, Sinatra said, "I don't dance."
Like much else about him, that may or may not have been true, but when millions all over the world did their dancing and love-making in the last century, Sinatra was with them.
Now he will be staring back at a new generation as they stamp their love letters, if there are still any who don't communicate with their partners entirely by e-mail and cell phone.
For better and occasionally for worse, Sinatra provided the sound track for our romantic lives as the Greatest Generation went to war, morphing from a scrawny crooner mobbed by teen-age girls to middle-aged sophisticate specializing in wised-up ballads of wounded rue to mellow old lover recalling the joys of yesteryear with swinging optimism ("The Best Is Yet to Come" is inscribed on his tombstone).
My own tastes ran more to Ella, Billie and Louis, but Frank Sinatra was a mesmerizing figure who held the 20th century stage with what Benjamin Schwarz in the Atlantic recently called "the most spectacular second act in American cultural history."
Washed up before 40, he came back to win an Academy Award by playing Maggio in "From Here to Eternity," an event celebrated by Mario Puzo in the "Godfather" scene of a Hollywood producer waking up with his horse's head under the covers to persuade him to cast Don Corleone's crooner.
Fictionalized as that may have been, Sinatra's mob ties were real, culminating in introducing a Mafia boss' girl friend to JFK during his White House years.
Sinatra was politically liberal back then but ended up by giving $4 million to the election campaign of his fellow actor Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Husband and lover of the most beautiful women of his time, from Ava Gardner to the widowed Lauren Bacall, he was at heart a guy's guy as shown in the Rat Pack goof-off movie, "Ocean's Eleven," a wretched thing that Steven Soderbergh remade in fine 21st century style.
We met once. At Truman Capote's Black-and-White Ball in 1966, a glum Sinatra, who left early for his friend Jilly's saloon, was watching his 21-year-old bride, Mia Farrow energetically lighting up the dance floor with one partner after another. When a beautiful woman suggested joining them, Sinatra said, "I don't dance."
Like much else about him, that may or may not have been true, but when millions all over the world did their dancing and love-making in the last century, Sinatra was with them.
Now he will be staring back at a new generation as they stamp their love letters, if there are still any who don't communicate with their partners entirely by e-mail and cell phone.
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