That’s Life!

This week at Glyn Wilton’s Mixed Music Bag,
he’s asking us to write about a song in which
the title or a line mentions the current month. 
Here’s my featured April artist and his song.

Every so often a performer comes along who takes the world by storm …. not for a day or a month or a year but for all time. We’ve seen it in varying degrees with personalities such as Elvis Presley and Tom Jones; when panties and hotel room keys get tossed on stage, that’s a pretty good indication of the entertainer’s impact on his audience. As a budding teenager, I was caught up in the phenomenon known as Beatlemania …. the most magical and exhilarating experience of my young lifetime. As I’ve mentioned before, in 1965 my mother surprised me and my sister with tickets to see the Beatles perform at Shea Stadium. Several months later I asked my mother if there were any singers around when she was younger who caused mass hysteria wherever they went, just as the Beatles had done. Without hesitation she said “Only one who mattered …. Frank Sinatra”.

Sinatra started singing professionally in his teens and got his first big break in 1935 at age 20. My mother was only 2 years younger than Frank and, while she wasn’t one of the manic bobbysoxers who followed him around like lovesick puppy dogs, she and her friends tried to see Sinatra whenever they could when he was performing in NYC.

Thirty years later, Mom was taking me to see the Beatles and Frank Sinatra was recording a song called “That’s Life” …. but he wasn’t the first to do so. The story is that one day Frank was driving his car when he heard someone named O.C. Smith on the radio. Frank liked what he heard so much that he called his daughter, Nancy, and asked her to see if she could track down the publisher of the song because he wanted to record it himself, and that’s exactly what Nancy did.

Sinatra first performed the song on his television special, A Man and His Music – Part II, with an arrangement by his long-time friend and collaborator, Nelson Riddle. Four background vocalists and 40 first-chair musicians were assembled for the recording, including the highly regarded group of session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew.

“That’s Life” proved to be a major success for Sinatra; it was a #4 hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and reached #1 on the Easy Listening chart for three weeks in December ’66 and January ’67. The song delivers an uplifting message, one that reminds us that despite the ups and downs in life, we shouldn’t give up; with a positive attitude and perseverance, one day we’ll be “back on top”. And Frank sings it like nobody’s business! My, my!

This is “That’s Life” by Frank Sinatra, written by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon

A Mixed Bag 2025 – Warrant – April 2031

Big thanks to Glyn Wilton for hosting Mixed Music Bag each week. Please be sure to follow the link and check out Glyn’s site.

Thanks for joining me today and spinning some tunes.

That’s all she wrote, kids! See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

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