1967 Frank & Nancy Sinatra: Somethin' Stupid

Now here's an odd one - 'Somethin' Stupid' was written by Carson Parks and originally recorded as a duet with his wife Gail Foote. With a lyric detailing that uncertain point where a desire to turn a friendship into love comes mixed with the fear of losing everything should the other not reciprocate, there's a hardwired 'irony' in having two voices mirroring each other to show both feel exactly the same way about the other with only a shared paralysis preventing anything developing. All well and good, but there's something creepily incestuous about hearing a father singing it in tandem with his daughter:* "And if we go someplace to dance I know that there's a chance you won't be leaving with me" - in order to avoid any distasteful connotations in the context of the song then the two leads either have to be recognised as singing past each other (rather than to) to their own individual would be lovers, or else one of them has to be relegated to a back-up role only. Which I think is closer to the mark here.

Normally so forthright in her music, it could be that the erstwhile Lightning's Girl thought singing a love duet with her own father was left of centre enough to keep her edge of subversion sharp and so didn't need to do too much else other than turn up. Because that's exactly how she approaches this; Nancy's voice is mixed low in any case, but taken in isolation she sounds totally cowed by her old man's shadow, a rabbit frozen in his juggernaut of legend headlights too frightened to put out a voice of her own. It renders her input more than a bit superfluous and it provides an unnecessary distraction from something that is otherwise a delight - from an on form Frank riding the light bossanova melody with a wistful air to an uncharacteristically light handed production from Lee Hazelwood, everything works just fine and it makes me wish that this was a solo affair. Sorry Nancy.


* 'Somethin' Stupid' is the only father/daughter duet to top the charts, but any unease this lyric generates pales beside 'Lemon Incest', the 1984 song Serge Gainsborough wrote and recorded with his twelve year old daughter Charlotte. Got to number two in France......