Watertown (album)

Watertown
Studio album by Frank Sinatra
Released	1970
Recorded	July 14, 17, 1969
Genre	Classic pop
Length	36:18
Label	Reprise
Producer	Bob Gaudio
Frank Sinatra chronology
A Man Alone (1969) Watertown (1970) Sinatra & Company (1971)

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Allmusic

Watertown is a 1970 studio album by the American singer Frank Sinatra.

It is Sinatra's most ambitious concept album, an experiment perhaps first started on the 1966 album That's Life. It charts the story of a middle-aged man in Watertown, New York, whose wife has left him with his children.

It is similar in tone and nature to Sinatra's earliest concept albums, albums that evoke an air of despair and loneliness, found on such albums as 1958's Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely and 1955's In the Wee Small Hours.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine describes the album's construction as being a 'Series of brief lyrical snapshots that read like letters or soliloquies, the culminating effect of the songs is an atmosphere of loneliness, but it is a loneliness without much hope or romance - it is the sound of a broken man'. It is this introspection that one consistently finds in Sinatra's later albums, culminating in Sinatra's last concept album, Trilogy: Past Present Future from 1980.

"Watertown" was produced and co-written by Bob Gaudio, 1/4 of the 1960s pop vocal group The Four Seasons. The songs were co-written by Jake Holmes.

The album was released to mixed critical reviews and poor sales.

Sinatra would release one further album, Sinatra & Company, before announcing his retirement.

In 2011, the band CAKE covered "What's Now Is Now" on their album Showroom of Compassion.

Track listing

1. "Watertown" – 3:36
2. "Goodbye (She Quietly Says)" – 3:06
3. "For a While" – 3:09
4. "Michael & Peter" – 5:10
5. "I Would Be in Love (Anyway)" – 2:31
6. "Elizabeth" – 3:38
7. "What a Funny Girl (You Used to Be)" – 3:00
8. "What's Now Is Now" – 4:04
9. "She Says" – 1:51
10. "The Train" – 3:26
11. "Lady Day" (CD bonus track) – 2:47

All songs written by Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes

Personnel

• Frank Sinatra - vocals
• Bob Gaudio - producer, composer, arranger
• Jake Holmes - lyricist
• Charles Calello - arranger, conductor
• Joe Scott - arranger, conductor
• Jamie Alexander aka James Rocco and Diane Dell - background vocals

External links

• A perceptive essay on Watertown by Simpleton
• Ed O'Brien interviews Watertown Lyricist Jake Holmes and Composer/Producer Bob Gaudio
• A more unorthodox take on the album's central concept from Frankosonic
• A podcast anylysis of Watertown
• In-depth analysis of Watertown by Paul Fuzz