爵士歌王弗兰克·辛纳屈 | 经济学人讣告

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2023-01-07 02:01

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Frank Sinatra

弗兰克·辛纳屈

英文部分选自经济学人19980521讣告

Frank Sinatra

弗兰克·辛纳屈

Francis Albert Sinatra, the voice of an era, died on May 14th, aged 82

一个时代的声音：弗朗西斯·阿尔伯特·辛纳屈于1998年5月14日去世，享年82岁

THE story goes that Frank Sinatra asked John Paul II to hear his confession. The pope declined, despite Mr Sinatra's promise to see him right. The story may have been made up, perhaps by Mr Sinatra's own publicists; little that is reported about showbiz can be taken on trust. But it sounds right. Frank Sinatra liked to say he dealt only with the best, and the best could be bought or intimidated like anyone else. The great singer would give his greatest performance, this time to God, recounting how the ten commandments, the seven deadly sins, had been broken: his way.

据说弗兰克·辛纳屈曾请求教皇约翰·保罗二世聆听忏悔。尽管他请求时承诺会对教皇以礼相待，但教皇仍拒绝了。这个故事可能是辛纳屈的公关人员编造的，毕竟娱乐圈的报道很少是真的。但至少听着像真的。弗兰克·辛纳屈喜欢吹嘘自己只和最优秀的人打交道，而最优秀的人和其他人一样也可以收买和威胁。这位著名的歌手将为上帝奉上最好的表演，讲述他如何用自己的方式打破十诫和七宗罪。

Mr Sinatra did meet a predecessor of John Paul at a reception in Rome. This pope did not seem to have heard of him before and politely inquired what operas he had sung in. Such ignorance; but it has no doubt been shared this past week by many in the world's younger generations, baffled by the huge headlines and the yards of articles about Mr Sinatra in newspapers, and the hours about him on television. Who was this octogenarian getting all the attention? That was the immortal Ol' Blue Eyes, darling. Newspapers and television are mostly run by the middle-aged middle class, and Frank Sinatra was part of their youth.

辛纳屈确实在罗马的一次招待会上会见过约翰·保罗之前的某任教皇。这位教皇以前似乎没有听说过他，礼貌地询问他出演过哪些歌剧。太无知了。但毫无疑问，这种无知在之前的一周遍布全球的年轻一代，他们对报纸上关于辛纳屈的巨幅标题和长篇报道，以及电视上对他的长时间关注困惑不已。这位备受关注的八旬老人究竟是谁？“那是不朽的蓝眼睛呀，亲爱的。”经营报纸和电视媒体的大多是中产阶级的中年人，而弗兰克·辛纳屈就是他们的青春。

注释：

辛纳屈高高的颧骨和深邃的蓝眼睛一度成为他俘获人们喜爱的标志。

Go back to the 1960s and 1970s. There were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, of course, twanging their guitars and shouting themselves hoarse, and Elvis lewdly rotating his pelvis. But the Sinatra light baritone backed by a thousand strings was preferred by those who still liked to dance cheek to cheek. The words were often banal, but don't laugh; lose yourself; it's schmaltz that makes the world go round. Al Jolson produced the same effect, and in the 1920s was an idol too, down on his knees crying for “Mammy”. It seems unlikely that Jolson and Sinatra were faking it. Much has been made of Frank Sinatra's short temper, his intolerance of criticism, his links with gangsters, but this may only prove a point. “Sentimentality is a superstructure covering brutality,” wrote Carl Jung.

让我们回到上世纪六七十年代。那时当然有弹着吉他大声嘶吼的披头士和滚石乐队，还有放荡扭胯的猫王。不过，像辛纳屈这样温暖亲切、拥有上千首作品的男中音歌手依然深受那些仍喜欢跳贴面舞的人喜爱。辛纳屈的歌词通常很老套，但别笑，人们容易沉醉其中，世界需要这种伤感情绪。艾尔·乔森是伤感型歌手，也是二十世纪二十年代的偶像歌手，曾经边唱歌边跪在地上哭着喊“妈咪”。在歌曲中受伤脆弱的辛纳屈和乔森不大像是装出来的。很多新闻都拿辛纳屈的暴躁脾气、对批评的零容忍、以及与黑帮的关系大作文章，但是这可能只证明了一点。那就是像卡尔•荣格曾说过的一句话：“多愁善感是一种掩盖野蛮暴力的上层建筑”。

Romance was not enough

不止于浪漫

Was that then the secret of Frank Sinatra's success, a listenable voice and a reputation for roughness? His longevity must have helped. He was born in a slum district of New Jersey to Italian immigrants (father a fireman, mother a nurse) and had a first-generation American's determination to succeed. He never willingly retired and had to be carried off the stage in 1994 when he collapsed in the middle of singing “My Way”.

难道弗兰克·辛纳屈的成功秘诀就只是嗓音悦耳、行事粗野吗？耄耋之寿想必也是秘诀之一。辛纳屈出身于美国新泽西州贫民区的意大利移民家庭（父亲是消防员，母亲是护士），他与许多第一代美国移民一样渴望成功。他从不愿告别表演事业，直到1994年演唱曲目《我的路》时突然晕倒，才被人抬离舞台。

Other singers had their moment of fame and were quickly gone, but he endured. When Mr Sinatra was making his first records with the swing bands of Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, the foremost pop singer in America was Bing Crosby. He seemed unsurpassable in popular esteem. He had an easy and wholesome style. Pope John Paul would have had no problem with Crosby. Frank Sinatra sang the same ballads, but made them sound sexier. Crosby, you felt, would be happy with a kiss; Sinatra sought possession of the whole body. Cole Porter demanded to know why he sang so many of his songs if he did not like the way they were written. But Frank Sinatra had captured the public's new mood for licentiousness rather than mere romance, and received the reward of fame and money.

其他歌手也许风光一时，辛纳屈却“红了一世”。辛纳屈与哈里詹姆斯和汤米·多西的摇摆乐乐队合作录制个人早期唱片时，美国流行乐坛的顶流还是平克劳斯贝。当时的克劳斯贝可谓人气爆棚、风头无两。他那随和、正派的气度，想必也会博得教皇约翰·保罗的青睐。同样的歌谣经辛纳屈诠释，则会平添几分性感。换句话说，听克劳斯贝唱情歌感觉就像情窦初开的轻吻，而辛纳屈的版本则仿佛要让激情占据这肉体凡躯。作曲家科尔·波特曾追问辛纳屈，若不喜欢他创作的词曲风格，何必演唱如此众多的作品？但正是得益于辛纳屈的演绎，波特的曲目在浪漫之余又添了不羁与放肆，恰好迎合当时大众的新喜好，而辛纳屈也得以名利双收。

注释：

Swing music：摇摆乐，一种爵士乐风格，诞生于20世纪二三十年代，主要特点为节奏感较弱，依赖歌手根据节奏即兴演唱。

You could not get away from him. There were dozens of films, most of them forgettable. According to Billy Wilder, a film director, Frank Sinatra had talent but did not have the discipline to be a great actor. He had a fleshy private life that was remarkable even for Hollywood. There were many affairs and four marriages. A reporter asked him what he looked for in a woman. “A sense of humour,” he said. His fourth wife, Barbara, had been married to one of the Marx brothers.

辛纳屈的“存在感”委实强大。他参演过数十部影片，尽管绝大多数乏善可陈。电影导演比利·怀尔德就曾表示，辛纳屈天赋有余而自律不足，无法成为优秀的演员。他的私生活桃色不断，“精彩程度”在好莱坞亦是数一数二。他有过四段婚姻和数不尽的艳事。记者曾问他看重女性的哪些品质，他答道：“幽默感”。而他第四任妻子芭芭拉的前夫，正是美国著名喜剧团体马克斯兄弟的成员。

It was not much fun for the reporters whose job it was to follow him around. They were, he said, “a bunch of fags”, and the women were “hookers”. Frank Sinatra needed continuous publicity to stay ahead, but loathed the stories he could not control. People were only mildly interested in accounts of his concerts for charity. They were absorbed by his appearance before a commission investigating his links with organised crime, which he denied. “Bugsy Siegel? He's a gangster?” They were incredulous about a report that he washed his hands obsessively, especially when an obliging newspaper pointed to a reference in “Macbeth”: “What, will these hands ne'er be clean?” After that he was called Lady Macbeth, at least behind his back.

但对于那些以报道他为生的记者来说，事情就没那么有意思了。在辛纳屈看来，这些记者要么是"扭捏作态"，要么就是"搔首弄姿"。为了保持热度，他需要持续不断的曝光，但他并不喜欢自己控制不了的花边故事。他的慈善音乐会并没有引起人们太多的关注，但当他出现在调查是否涉及有组织犯罪的委员会听证现场时，尽管他极力否认，人们却表现出了莫大的兴趣。"巴格斯·西格尔吗？他居然是个黑帮分子？"。人们也对一篇关于他洗手成瘾的报道将信将疑，尤其是有一家好事的报社引用了《麦克白》的台词，戏谑他道“这双手怎么就洗不干净？”。自此他就有了“麦克白夫人”的诨号，至少人们会在他背后这么说。

注释：

巴格斯·西格尔（Bugsy Siegel，1906-1947），美国赌场大亨，参与建设赌城拉斯维加斯的数座大赌场，对美国的意大利黑帮和犹太黑帮有极大的影响力。

There was an unpleasant side to Frank Sinatra, and more dirt will probably come out now that he is beyond the protection of libel laws and the mob. More important though, much more than this, may be that he characterised an era. It was a less gentle time than Crosby's, but not that different. Frank Sinatra sang about a mating game in which men and women played their timeless roles. Today's pop singers, with their hermaphrodite looks, their taste for drugs and violence, suggest a darker era. Or so it may seem to the middle-aged who write about them.

辛纳屈有令人不愉快的一面，未来可能也会曝光出更多的污点，毕竟他现在不受诽谤法和黑手党的保护。但更重要的是，相比于这些污点，他在更大的程度上或许代表着一个时代。虽然他的时代没有克劳斯贝的时代那样温柔，但也没有多少不同。他歌唱的求偶游戏中，男男女女扮演着自己亘古不变的角色。如今的流行歌手雌雄难辨、吸毒成瘾、喜好暴力，表明现在这个时代更加黑暗；或者说，对于那些执笔评论的中年作家来说，可能就是这样。

注释：

平·克劳斯贝1923年出道，辛纳屈1935年出道，故此处说二者所处的时代不同。

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观点|评论|思考

本次感想
Shulin，女，热咖啡+保温杯，慢慢来er

如果每个人都有自己的人生剧本，那么手握这个剧本的人生简直开了外挂：

男，意大利裔美国人，风流倜傥，仪表堂堂；歌手、演员、电台和电视节目主持人、唱片公司老板等多重身份的娱乐界巨头；能歌善演，演技出色，共获得11座格莱美奖、3座奥斯卡奖、24座Down Beat奖项，还获得过肯尼迪中心荣誉奖、总统自由勋章、国会金质奖章；黑白两道通吃，如云美女傍身，寿命八十有三。

这是弗兰克·辛纳屈真实经历过的传奇一生。他是白人爵士歌王，20世纪五六十年代爵士乐的代表人物，影响了二战后美国流行乐坛大发展走向。幼年时家境贫寒的他并没有受过正规的音乐训练，可他硬是凭着自己独特的风格和不断的努力闯出了一条属于自己的路。时至今日，他仍是全世界歌迷心目中的传奇偶像。

当然，谁都有低谷的时候。完美主义的弗兰克曾多次试图自杀。他最出色的专辑里都带有暗黑气息，常收录一些关于孤独和心碎的歌曲。正如《My way》的歌词：“我曾得寸进尺、贪得无厌，也曾饱受质疑、惶惑不安。但我吞下所有苦楚，昂首挺立。我走出了我自己的路。”

成长意味着学会与改变不了的命运握手言和。出生时难产在左脸颊上留下的伤疤，以及一生中自己做过的那些悔恨的事，弗兰克通盘接受，并勇敢无畏地再一次出发。不管人生剧本看起来多么光鲜亮丽，身处其中才真正能体会出五彩斑斓、充满酸甜苦辣的人生滋味。当生命的齿轮开始转动，环环相扣，你并不知道哪一次微不足道的契合，能够成就人生的一次高光时刻。你能做的只有配合转动，在灯光暗淡、帷幕降下的岁月里，以自己的方式生长，期待下一次命运将你托举，受万众瞩目。

弗兰克便是这样生长的典范。活得多姿多彩的他，没有辜负这一生的时光，总是在不断尝试新的技能，挑战自己。直至生命的尽头，他依然自信：未来会更好（The Best Is Yet to Come——他的墓志铭）。这或许是他最引以为傲的胜利。

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