(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please refer down below)
Frank Sinatra & Nancy Sinatra - "Somethin' Stupid"
Hit Number 1: April 15, 1967
Stay at Number 1: 4 Weeks
Here, we have the song that is known as the "incest song". I get the idea of duets: Most of them are supposed to be lovely, or at the very least cool songs. Sometimes both singers in a duet play different characters in a song, or they're simply there together because their voices sound cool together. But here, I just don't understand the appeal of it. Maybe I just don't get it, but I feel like family members should NOT sing love songs together as a duet. It seems weird, and it's pretty uncomfortable to listen to that. Again, maybe some people think it's cute, and they see it as a wonderful collaboration between a famed crooner and his daughter. I am not one of those people.
Frank Sinatra only thought of the idea to record "Somethin' Stupid" with his daughter because he happened to hear the original version of it. The song had been recorded by C. Carson Parks, who sang it with his wife Gaile Foote, and Sinatra knew that he wanted to record it with Nancy upon hearing it. He played Carson & Gaile's version to Nancy's producer, Lee Hazlewood, and Hazlewood loved it. He even said that if Frank wouldn't sing it with Nancy, that he would instead. But Frank's mind was set on recording it with his daughter, so he told Hazlewood to book a studio. On February 1, 1967, the two recorded the duet.
If you can get past the weird incest vibes of "Somethin' Stupid", there are some GOOD things to speak of. There is a gleaming string section, a fluttering guitar riff, and Frank's voice is as rich and as grand as it is on any other Frank Sinatra recording. But that's also a little bit of a problem in the case of "Somethin' Stupid". His voice completely outshines Nancy's, and it's incredibly hard to even hear her. And if you do somehow manage to hear her, she sounds really bored, almost robotic in her delivery. The two don't seem 100% in sync to me. And of course, the idea of a father and a daughter singing a love song together is not cute in my eyes, though Nancy has said before that she thinks it's "cute" that some think of it as the "incest song". It's just, weird. The song is about two lovers who were just meeting for the first time, but the night gets spoiled because the guy lets the words "I love you" slip out. That's the thing that's considered as "something stupid". The lyrics aren't the problem though, and if you can get the right people together, I don't see why the song couldn't work. So there is some solid potential with this song, but this isn't it man. And it's too bad that we won't see Frank or Nancy in this blog again, because they both deserve a better chance to redeem themselves a little bit.
GRADE: 4/10
JUST MISSED:
The Monkees' (who will appear in this blog again pretty soon) bouncy feel-good hit "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You" peaked at #2 behind "Somethin' Stupid". It's a 6. (I have no idea what's going on in this video, but it's strangely entertaining)
MY INSPIRATION / MORE INFORMATION:
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