I love Frank Sinatra, but it's been Frank Sinatra since I sat down — with a brief assist from Nancy Sinatra — and not only are the songs repeating — I'm coming flying with him again and we've already been to Peru — but when "My Way" came on again, they cranked up the volume.
September 20, 2022
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If that was the goal, wouldn't it be faster to put something like "They're Coming to Take Me Away" on repeat?
Nothing but Frank and Nancy? Now that's something stupid.
I find myself missing Crescendo on Monroe St. Now -- if Indie closes, I don't know what I'll do at work.
Just take out all your heroin implements and they'll leave you alone.
"If I hear 'Ya Mo Be There' one more time I'm going to 'Ya Mo Burn' this place to the ground."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw7Gryt-rcc
An alternative version of My Way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIXg9KUiy00
[Sex Pistols classic punk rock]
I recently completed my collection of Frank's 1950 albums including what many consider the first themed concept 33.3 long playing album "in the wee small hours" (lower case on the album cover). What a collection of recordings! That said, my fave tune by Frank is when he was with the Dorsey band - "Say It (over and over again) originally from - of all places - a Jack Benny movie "Buck Benny Rides Again (1940).
Maybe some young person watched the last season of Cobra Kai and discovered that song for the first time.
If that was the intent, they would play Alanis Morissette on a loop. Maybe that would illicit too many spontaneous suicides.
"My Heart Will Go On" on loop. Bye!
100% effective - by the third repeat, the room is clear.
@Dagwood wins the comment thread.
Maybe it’s code to let people know there are Boomers in the joint.
Or a variation on the “What’s New Pussycat?” gag.
https://youtu.be/Mw7Gryt-rcc
Last week I put Mahler's 2nd on a continuous loop.
My breaking point on the rock-pop FM stations? I really don't need to hear "Don't you forget about me" by Simple Minds EVER AGAIN.
Any restaurant that plays hard rock, hard rap, or anything hard and loud - I do NOT go in.
so if you want to keep me out - I've given you the road map.
Over the weekend - I happened to be at a downtown patio restaurant on the walking mall. Some young Asian man was set up on the mall singing and playing his violin. He had a voice like silk and melted butter, and he was singing a lot of Sinatra. It was nice! Fly me to the moon anytime.
Funny. Reminds me of my restaurant days. I once-upon-a-time owned and ran a restaurant in Buffalo, NY. This was back in the late 80s. Buffalo was then (and probably still is) a heavy drinkin' town. We had a nice bistro with a neat bar in a separate room. And being Buffalo, the bar stayed open until 4am. Our man who was our main bartender/closing manager- I'll call him 'Jack'- kinda ran the bar end of things, especially when we were done in the kitchen and dining room and had to get out of there for some sleep (anyone watch The Bear?).
During the earlier part of the evening we had younger bartenders playing hipster tunes on our music system in the bar. But when Jack came in, the bar mood changed. The music changed. It got classier, the crowd started moving over from the younger people who typically came into our place to get a smash on before taking on the actual clubs around town, to an older crowd with a mix of professionals and locals- all loving to talk about politics, sports, and Buffalo happenings. But when Jack needed to clear out the last of the youngins' or just stake his claim to the night- out came the earlier music and in went Sinatra. For the rest of the night it was mainly Frankie, with a smattering of Roy Orbison and some other oldies, but goodies. You could almost feel the crowd just slink into mellowness when Sinatra came on singing "Summer Wind" or when it was 2am and Frankie was crooning "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning".
I didn't love those years, but I did love those moments.
Clever. With enough songs on the loop people will stay long enough to order but won’t overstay their welcome.
Mezzrow - yes.
anything Celine Dion or Mariah Carey. ugh.
Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "My Way" could play endlessly on repeat for me. Cigarette in hand, strolling the living room of a small party, riffing with his keyboardist, and belting the shit out of it with ease. Sinatra's a piker.
For 80-year-olds, this would bring them in.
It's been widely reported that back in the Beatnik era, the Gaslight and other venues for beat poets would hire folk singers to clear the places out so they could could get fresh (and thirsty) clientele for the next set.
If they were trying to clear the cafe, it would be Yoko Ono.
Businesses used to play classical music to scatter ne'er-do-well kids hanging around their door.
Does anyone from the Philadelphia region remember "Fridays with Frank" on the radio? I discovered Sinatra while attending Temple University in the early 70s and have been a big fan ever since (I'm 70 now). I would enjoy visiting a coffee shop that played only Sinatra, although they could throw in some Dean Martin for a little variety.
Victor Borge called Debussy's Clair de lune "clear the room." Not to be confused with Faure's Clair de lune which is excellent.
"You can clear the room / By playing Debbie Boone." -- Weird Al Yankovic
"my fave tune by Frank is when he was with the Dorsey band"
I discovered The One I Love on YT last year. It's not a great tune but the sheer professionalism of the horns and Frank and the Pied Pipers just blows me away
What else have we lost?
If the post reflected our host's recent experience at a Starbucks, I assume she decided that These Boots Were Made For Walking---and exited the premises.
"I'm coming flying with him again..."
Doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way.
Yes, but was it a very good year?
Be thankful they weren't playing rap. "F the effing f," etc.
There's a very popular homestyle restaurant here in the Medical District, which is also a high-crime area. For years they've kept bums, beggars, and ne'er-do-wells out of the parking lot by playing 50's pop music on the outdoor speakers. Also in the bathrooms.
The dining area is usually too busy to notice the music, if any.
Two days ago inToledo Spain I’m in a cafe, the first couple of songs I noticed were show tunes, Moon River was one, then some Motown, then the Stones, I can’t remember the next ones but it seemed like it was a decade by decade compilation. the last song I heard before leaving was hip hop. Was it a loop chosen by someone who couldn’t make up their mind and just wanted to catch someone’s fav era?
If they're playing Nancy Sinatra, too, then yes, they're trying to clear the cafe.
First real job was at post office. Played Sinatra, Vic Damone and similar on a loop of about a dozen songs. Same ones over and over, day after day after day.
That is why I quit.
Well, that and marijuana and nine ball.
Big Mike said...
Clever. With enough songs on the loop people will stay long enough to order but won’t overstay their welcome.
Mad Men brilliant.
I was in a Barnes and Nobles and I heard this music I had never heard before. It was amazing!
I asked this guy behind the counter, "what is this music? It's so damn cool."
He said, "I don't know."
He found the CD. It was this band from Africa
(it's not in English but the music is flawless)
Abba
and Her Fucking Ear Worms
would not only clear me out
her music would haunt me for 24 hours
because that shit is catchy
Btw, my biggest restaurant pet peeve (other than, "Hi, I'm Brad and I'll be your server") is music.
It's always too damned loud.
I usually there to have a meal nicer than I can cook and to speak to a companion.
The music should be barely there at all...
Blogger Joe Smith said...
Btw, my biggest restaurant pet peeve (other than, "Hi, I'm Brad and I'll be your server") is music.
Better than MSNBC on 85"
If you want to get the Sinatra’s off the loop, sing along.
No "Lucy in the Sky's with Diamonds" covered by WIlliam Shatner? I do like his album "Has Been", think he was prescient with some of the lyrics, like "common people".
Yesterday, we ate at Culver’s, and a guy in the next booth was playing his own music out loud.
I wonder why that’s never happened to me before. Such an infringement of the norm.
I don't remember Shatner's "Lucy," but I do his "Mister Tambourine Man," which is LOL hideous.
The other day, I was walking down State Street, the main shopping street in Madison, and a merchant had music speakers directed out onto the sidewalk. As I passed, the snippet I heard was: “N****, you ain’t shit!” Sung by a female in a perfectly nasty tone.
I felt like the whole city was trying to force me to move away. What kind of culture is this? This is a place full of young college students. Is this their music? Just fun, normal stuff to them?
Double Plus thumbs up, St Croix. I discovered Orchestra Baobab doing research on West African music after Cesaria Evora died. NPR did a big story on her and was blown away by the Barefoot Diva. I had already fell in love with Cubano music after Buena Vista Social Club came out, so I did a deep dive into mostly Cape Verde musicians. For me it was the sudden discovery of unknown unknowns: Tito Paris, Mariza, Sara Tavares, Bana, Luis Morais, Travadinha, Ildo Lobo, Os Tubarões, Simentera, Bao, Bulimundo, Humbertona, and Mayra Andrade
This was my favorite number crunching music. I could listen to it all day for several days straight until I got the crunching done. Thanks to The Crack MC for turning me on to Mingus, who was his Step Dad, I think?
Charles Mingus - Moanin' [2 hour Version]
This is what we listened to before HS swim meets. The bass line was perfect rhythm for the 500-yard freestyle.
Locomotive Breath (2001 Remaster)
Ann - 4:10
Geeez. where to escape?
The cultural rot is everywhere.
The Woke Mafia will tell us songs from the 50's are offensive... you know- 'cuddling by the fire.
Baby it's cold outside...' Stuff like that.
But somehow "N****, you aint' shit!" and "Wet Ass Pussy" are A-OK.
Saint Croix -
I too have been exposed to some great music at Barnes and Noble.
The Sinatra album I've always loved is Songs For Swingin' Lovers
dated but really cool anyway
St. Croix, you are right. Something new. But imagine if it were playing on an endless loop!
Orchestra Baobab - Senegal Sunugal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Inq3F7vBh4&list=RDEMnURH4elPgsUtFORKFpvupA&index=17
imagine if it were playing on an endless loop!
I don't have to imagine, that's the way I used to play that shit in my car!
Among other things, I'd wonder, what the fuck am I singing?
(Never stopped me as a child).
I was kind of famous for thinking that Pete Townsend was singing "Let Milo Open the Door." Which made fucking sense but apparently that is wrong.
Althouse is all "get off my yard, rapper!"
I felt like the whole city was trying to force me to move away. What kind of culture is this? This is a place full of young college students. Is this their music? Just fun, normal stuff to them?
Get a big dog, Althouse! Kids don't fuck with dogs. You remember that punk ass kid who put a tampon in your front yard? Scooby Doo would solve that shit.
I tell my parents to get another dog. And they're like, "But we would have to walk her." Yes. Yes you would. Dog gets you out of the house. And handles all the incidents with the punks who are not polite.
Let me tell you another dog story. (This is kind of a bad one).
So I'm walking my two dogs, Golden Retriever (Scout) and the Shepherd-Collie mix (Katy). The Golden was 110 pounds and the Shepherd was 70. (Meade might have to hold the leash, just saying, although maybe there's no leash law in Madison because liberals are so fucking nice -- in Charlotte people yell at my ass).
Okay, so I'm walking my two dogs. And I never knew what was worse, when they pulled me in opposite directions or the same direction. Both were bad.
I spend zero time training my dogs because I didn't have time for that shit. Although Scout and I did go to puppy obedience school and he came in second place. To a fucking Rottweiler. We would have come in first place (the final test was the "Sit" which Scout should have won). Except there was a damn sausage biscuit on the ground like 10 feet away from Scout. I was like "fuck man that's not fair! Sit Scout, sit Scout, sit dog!" And he was trying to obey while looking at that damn sausage biscuit. Anyway we came in second. That's how you get the silver, Olympians, fucking sausage biscuits while you are training.
Blogger were's going to end this one here, I got more to say
Okay, so I'm walking my two dogs, and this little boy about 10 years old comes up to us.
"Do your dogs bite?"
"No, they're super nice. That's Scout, he's super-friendly. He's a Golden Retriever."
And he petted Scout, who was about 1 years old and maybe 90 pounds. Scout really liked this kid. His tail was wagging. And so Scout jumped on the boy, knocked him down, and started humping him.
I'm like, "oh shit!"
My other dog, Katy, just a puppy, on a retractable leash, runs around me and Scout and the boy like three times, so I've got this fucking leash around my legs while I'm yanking my dog off this child. And I smack my dog, my one and only time I ever smacked my dog. It was kind of a rape emergency.
I was so happy this boy was wearing pants.
I straighten out the conflict. The boy is bawling and crying. Both my dogs are sitting, scared out of their minds (I guess), they didn't run away, but that humping was done. And the kid says...
"He bit me! He bit me!"
I'm like, holy shit, my dog bit this kid. So I pull off the kid's shirt, looking for a bite mark.
There's not a mark on him.
(Male dogs put their teeth on the shoulder of bitches to keep them in place for the mounting). "It wasn't a bite, okay, he just wanted to fuck you." I didn't say any of that because it wouldn't have helped him any.
So now I have a crying child, half naked, with his shirt in my hand, and two dogs. I'm like, "holy fuck, I'm in trouble." I tried to put his shirt back on, and that was helpless. I'm like, "I have to take this crying half-naked child home to his mother. This is not good."
I take him to his mother. My fear is that Scout is going to be dead and I'm going to be charged with some fucking crime. The kid's bawling all the way home.
His mom (liberal, I think, very nice) was super nice. I said, "He was petting my dog and my dog knocked him down and I was looking for a bite mark but there's no bite mark." I was terrified.
She said, "It's fine, it's okay, don't worry about it."
(Mothers are awesome).
I did not tell her that my dog tried to have sex with her son because I am not that honest.
The next day Scout and I went to the vet and he got his balls cut off.
I felt super-guilty about this my whole life. I'm sure that little boy (he's probably about 30 now) is terrified of dogs and hairy men and he has no idea why. Meanwhile, my dog had his balls cut off and that was an overreaction. Liberal vets are always trying to cut balls off. Seriously. Best dog I ever had, and we should have had pups. But he was a little rambunctious. We kind of had the same personality, to be honest, although I had better training and preferred women.
So that's why you should get a dog! And take care of that squirrel problem as an added bonus.
"I felt like the whole city was trying to force me to move away. What kind of culture is this?"
Welcome to the U S of A...
If it takes a barista to elevate a cappuccino addict's musical taste, then so be it!
kcl766…Yes, I remember Fridays with Frank along with Sundays with Sinatra on the Philly talk radio station.
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