I’d like to start off my “Song of the Day” week with an artist everyone can agree on – the man, the myth, ol’ blue eyes himself – Frank Sinatra.  I’ve had a recurring fascination with Frank since I was a kid.  The older I get, the more my appreciation and respect for him grows. There were lots of recordings lying around the house where I grew up, but I gravitated towards Sinatra and Elvis, doing my best to imitate them in my pubertic teenage voice. In a way, I think Frank’s recordings primed my ears to appreciate operatic voices later on. Indulging in recordings of Thomas Allen and Bryn Terfel at the tender age of 15 might not have thrilled me as much had I not spent so much time listening to Sinatra’s already, admiring his iconic, recognizable sound. Not to mention, a performance by Frank is a certified lesson in charisma, confidence, and style. He just has “it.” Whatever “it” is, Sinatra is the definition.

Aaron Copland once said, “You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down… some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.” Frank might not be Copland’s composer in this instance, but his recordings make it pretty clear how it was to be Frank during those days. This video of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” ranks up there in my book as one of the very best recordings of Sinatra performing live. See what you think of it.