Day #8: Sinatra Centennial Memorabilia Celebration

 

 

Magazine Advertisement for Anchors Aweigh (1945)

 

So, there's this great Hannah Montana song, the chorus of which goes...

If we were a movie
you'd be the right guy
and I'd be the best friend
you'd fall in love with;
in the end, we'd be laughing
watching the sun set
fade to black
show the names
play the happy song

Now, Frank Sinatra made a career, it's been quite well argued by Phil Furia and others, by exploiting the inherent vulnerability of singing Broadway songs originally written for women. While he changed all the obvious pronouns (for the heterosexual world that is the "Great American Songbook"), the basic longing and suffering that was meant for the female characters in these Porter/Gershwin/Kern/etc. musicals, remained in the songs -- which allowed Frank to mine a level of hurt previously unheard of in the popular singing performances by men.

I call this to mind because, as much as I love to join in on the Hannah Montana song quoted above, I can't just change "guy" to "gal" and sing along. Why? Because the best "guy" friend NEVER gets the "right girl" in the movies.

Frank doesn't end up with Kathryn Grayson in Anchors Aweigh (lost to Gene Kelly) or It Happened in Brooklyn (lost to Peter Lawford). (He might get her at the end of The Kissing Bandit, but, since I've never been able to make it to the end of that movie, it doesn't count...and I don't think he's anyone's best friend in it anyway.)

To be slightly more contemporary...let's face it, the Duckies (Jon Cryer) of the world NEVER get Andie (Molly Ringwald).

So, what to do?

I sing:

If we were a movie
you'd be the right girl
I'd be the best friend
who loses out to Andrew McCarthy
(or some such bland, waspish, rich kid who,
admittedly, is not as bad as James Spader,
the blander, waspier, richer kid,
who, since then, has really put on a lot of weight,
so now he's just kinda creepy)
fade to black
show the names
play the happy song

(repeat)