September 21, 2006

"Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day)"

"Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day)" (Lowe/Mann/Weiss) is one of several tunes Frank Sinatra recorded many times during his fifty-plus-year career. It was used as the closing number for his Old Gold Presents Songs for Sinatra radio program from 1945-1947 (the opening song each night being "Night and Day," the song he recorded the most versions of, including one with a disco beat during the seventies).

He recorded it at Columbia (1945), Capitol (1957), and finally for his own record label, Reprise (1963). My favorite is the one he did at Reprise. As with most of his Reprise work, his voice is darker, and the singing jazzier (he could play around with the notes of the songs he'd sung hundreds of times by the sixties). Also, the orchestra is much more lush, and the recording cleaner and crisper.

Probably because his audience had grown accustomed to it as his signature closing song, Sinatra used it for the finale of at least four of his television specials: A Man and His Music (1965), A Man and His Music II (1966), A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim (1967), Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing (1968). Here is each of those:

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Sorry I am so late commenting about Francis, I have been quite busy.

I honestly think that Frank didn't like this song. He rarely if ever closed his concerts with this song only on TV. I think "everyone else" in the world at that time had a theme song and he picked this one (although I think he could have done much better). Bob Hope, Dean etc. all had trademark closing songs on their TV shows.

You have to go to this website if you like Sinatra. This guy was a a Pit Boss at The Sands for years and has many sotres about the Vegas in the 60's. http://www.songsbysinatra.com/stories/stories_main.html

You will enjoy it.

Chris said...

No need to apologize, cheryl.

I think your theory about Sinatra and "Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day" is dead on. You are right. He came out of that environment of every entertainer having their own radio show, complete with signature closing tune. But whether he like it, or not, he does it so beautifully. That was part of his genius, wasn't it? The ability to make us believe what he was singing, and make us believe he'd someone lived the songs he sang.

That website--what a find! Great. Thank you!

Unknown said...

I agree. When Frank sang a song, he felt the words.

I read somewhere that after a concert of Frank JR's , Frank Sr went backstage and ripped him up one side and down the other saying he had "walked" through the performance. He told Jr that if he ever saw him do that again he was going to dis-own him.

No one can ever say that Frank SR "phoned in" his performance.