By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

My father was a Frank Sinatra fan from the singer’s early days at The Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. He followed his career through musical styles, films and political beliefs. Of a later generation, I enjoyed Sinatra’s gift for phrasing and some of his standards. But there was one song, “The House I Live In,” that caught particular attention.

You would not immediately equate the singer with an early 1940s piece that became a patriotic anthem during World War II because Sinatra doesn’t quickly fit the image. His lifestyle was about running in a pack of fellow singers, being Las Vegas, brash, wining and dining, following more than a few of his lyrics as it were.

But the Sinatra not everyone knew, for he did not advertise ego that way, was the fellow who refused to perform in the South unless African-American entertainers were included. This out-there, even mean-tempered product of ethnic Hoboken, N.J., was a champion of civil rights, strongly integrating the Vegas scene. He was quietly but deeply charitable as well.

Sinatra was at times vengeful and harsh with people who offended him; his Mafia ties helped him and others in the industry. He supported the youthful, hopeful spirit of John F. Kennedy and, in later conservative leaning, Ronald Reagan.

So, how does this complex giving but quick-to-anger, volatile fellow come to sing “The House I Live In,” but with tears and at the presidential inaugurations of both Democrats and Republicans as well as many times in his performances?

The song, with lyrics by Abel Meeropol and music by Earl Robinson, both black-listed for political views, offers a liberal outlook but also mixed feelings about the United States and the “American Experiment” begun by white founders. The lyricist strongly supported constitutional rights – the foundation of the Constitution – but was ever upset by the treatment of people of other races, religion, political views and economic status.

Sinatra sang “The House I Live In” in a 10-minute 1945 film made to oppose anti-Semitism. It received an honorary Academy Award and a special Golden Globe. You can hear his emotion phrasing “What is America to me, a name, a map, or a flag I see. A certain word, democracy. …”

And, “The house I live in a plot of earth … the grocer … the children in the playground … all races and religions that’s America to me… the howdy and the handshake … the church, the schoolhouse … but especially the people that’s America to me.”

The American Experiment, the roadmap of which is the enshrined Constitution, began the vocabulary of “The House I Live In.” The “House” is America. If a fellow like Frank Sinatra, with both gifts and warts, a man both admirable and offending, of changing political views, can tear up singing these lyrics, there is hope in these darker days that the lamp lit in Philadelphia in 1789, though now challenged by the winds of hate and special interest, will stay lit.

Sinatra was imperfect. So are we all in this continuing American Experiment. That’s the point.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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