LOST IN THE STARS
By Mahnuel Muñoz
On August 8, 1946, Frank Sinatra recorded the song “Lost in the Stars“, composed by Kurt Weill and belonging to the musical of the same name.
The work narrates the harsh life experiences of a South African priest, in which he comes to lose his faith. It is then that he sings this beautiful elegy, one of the most beautiful songs to God, even if it is to doubt him; He shows him as someone imperfect, in the likeness of man, and like man, with the will to redeem his errors:
“Before Lord God made the sea or the land
He held all the stars in the palm of his hand
And they ran through his fingers like grains of sand
And one little star fell alone
Then the Lord God hunted through the wide night air
For the little dark star in the wind down there
And he stated and promised he’d take special care
So it wouldn’t get lost no more
The lyrics of the song have great depth; interpreting it requires a life trajectory that Frank did not yet have in 1946.
In 1963 the singer recorded it again with some striking arrangements by Nelson Riddle for the essential LP “The Concert Sinatra”. At this point in his life and career, Frank was undoubtedly able to do justice to the disenchanted reflections that constitute the subject:
“Now, a man don’t mind if the stars get dim
And the clouds blow over and darken him
So long as the Lord God’s watching over him
Keeping track how it all goes on”
But there is an even better version: the one made on August 16, 1968 for the television special “Frank Sinatra Does His Thing”, with the Earth’s wind contaminated by wars and racial violence: Vietnam, riots in which they stain skins of all colors with blood, the deaths of Luther King and the Kennedy brothers… The show, despite its innocuousness, clearly positions itself for racial integration, with African-American artists Diahann Carroll and The Fifth Dimension as guests .
Frank was always a man of marked social sensitivity and the hostility prevailing at that time seriously worried him, as did his personal and professional problems: the pain of his divorce from Mia Farrow, the inexorable physical aging, the press in circles with him. mafia issue, the music scene of the time in which there seemed to be no place for him… everything infiltrated his art:
“But I’ve been walking through the night and the day
Till my eyes get tired and my head turns gray
And sometimes it seems maybe God’s gone away
Forgetting his promise of him and the word he’d say
And we’re lost out here in the stars
Little stars big stars blowing through the night
And we’re lost out here in the stars
Little stars big stars blowing through the night
And we’re lost out here in the stars”
The idea of retirement was slowly being forged in Frank’s soul and mind, which he would make effective (fortunately, fleetingly) in 1971.
It’s a shame to say that this song is very topical. Many terrible events around the world turn us into small dark stars adrift. Let’s enjoy this wonder without despairing…or forgetting another song included in the aforementioned album “The Concert Sinatra”, “You’ll never walk alone”: We will never walk alone. At least as long as there is a Frank song.
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