Frank Sinatra's "She Shot Me Down" from 1981 (Reprise FS-2305) is his last LP of newly recorded studio material (no, i am not going to count the studio wizardry concocted "Duets"). It is surprisingly good. The album cover is one of my favorites.. it transmits a sense of the album: an album of so called "saloon songs"...songs about having been left .. a guy at a bar thinking about what went wrong...i remember first seeing this album cover at washington dc italian restaurant bucca di beppo..

the lp includes his version of "bang bang (my baby shot me down" the sonny bono penned song frank's daughter nancy performed over a decade earlier with a great lee hazelwood surf guitar (the song featured in kill bill)...the song titles give a sense of the album: "good thing going", "hey look no crying", "thanks for the memory" (featuring one of the silliest couplets ever heard: "how we used to jog even in a fog / that barbecue in malibu away from all the smog" and the ridiculous "tonight the way things look i need a book by sigmund freud, how brainy"), "monday morning quaterback", "i loved her" and the closing medley "the gal that got away/it never entered my mind" the latter of course performed by Sinatra decades earlier- in 1955- for his first LP of sad songs "in the wee small hours" but in my opinion but not necessarily better than this version where he elongates the line "uneaaasyyyy in my eaaaasyyyy chair"..mmmhh.. many people would be tempted to write this album off but its got something to offer the listener willing to turn down the lights, pour a glass of wine and share in the melancholy..