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Sinatra Song of the Week: I'm Gonna Live Til I Die

"I'm gonna live till I die! I'm gonna laugh 'stead of cry, I'm gonna take the town and turn it upside down, I'm gonna live, live, live until I die. They're gonna say "What a guy!" I'm gonna play for the sky. Ain't gonna miss a thing, I'm gonna have my fling, I'm gonna live, live, live until I die. The blues I lay low, I'll make them stay low, They'll never trail over my head. I'll be a devil, till I'm an angel, but until then. Hallelujah, gonna dance, gonna fly, I'll take a chance riding high, Before my number's up, I'm gonna fill my cup, I'm gonna live, live, live, until I die! The blues I lay low (etc.)"

The message is vintage Sinatra, a propos of his mantra "You gotta love livin' cause dying is a pain in the ass!". It's sort of a lost treasure among the Sinatra catalog, recorded in 1954 somewhere between his descent as the blue eyed object of bobbysoxer desire and his ascent to the pinnacle as "The Chairman of the Board". "I'm Gonna Live Til I Die" was written by Mann Curtis, Al Hoffman and Walter Kent and recorded by FAS for Capitol on December 13, 1954. He was accompanied by Ray Anthony and his Orchestra with an arrangement by Dick Reynolds. Perhaps the absence of his more famous musical co-conspirators has been one of the reasons for the marginalzation of this song. .

The song has experienced something of a revival in recent years. It was featured prominently at the beginning of the HBO movie "The Rat Pack". The movie begins with an old Frank Sinatra getting ready to go on stage, with the attendant hubbub you'd expect from his entourage. Old Sinatra steps out on stage and the cut is immediately to Ray Liotta as Rat Pack era Sinatra singing "I'm Going To Live Til I Die" as a montage of newspaper clippings highlighting his rise to the top of the entertainment industry.

Lyrically, the song expresses much of the same "the world is my oyster" sentiment as another song we've featured, "I've Got the World On A String." It's obviously not as solid musically as the Nelson Riddle arranged classic, but is surprisingly popular among modern day Sinatra-philes. I'm frequently asked to make Sinatra mix CD's, and I'd go so far as to say that "I'm Gonna Live Til I Die" ranks with "Fly Me To the Moon" and "Come Fly With Me" as the most requested tunes..

Sinatra's foremost musical biographer, Will Freidwald, is utterly dismissive of "Live Til I Die" in his essential volume "The Song Is You". He devotes less than a paragraph to it, dismissing it as "bad Broadway". To be sure, the song is a little more brassy and a little less swinging than his later work with Nelson Riddle but in my estimation Friedwald's summary dismissal of it is unwarranted.

"I'm Gonna Live Til I Day" may not be essential Sinatra, but its a fun, uptempo number that is always fun to listen to and belongs on any good Sinatra mix CD.

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