At Waterloo / Ol' Blue Eyes did surrender...

February 17, 1955. Frank Sinatra is in one of his final recording sessions for a new album, a concept album. An album for the weary, the sad, the broken. "In the Wee Small Hours", he was going to call it. In the last two days, he had cut eight songs that would end up on the album. They had been long days. Frank Sinatra is tired.

Nelson Riddle, the funny man with the hidden depths, looks into two tired old blue eyes and decides to chance it.

"One more, Mr. Sinatra?"

"Make it worth my while."

"It's one you haven't seen before. It's not from here or from the boys in New York. It's from Sweden, if you can believe it. But I think you'll like it."

Minutes pass.

"Nelson?"

"Mr. Sinatra?"

"Have you written an arrangement for this number?"

"Yes, Mr. Sinatra."

"Let's give it a try."

Here I go

Again

My my

How can I

Resist her?

Mamma Mia

Does it show

Again?

My my

Just how much I miss you

Yeeeeeeeeeeeees

I've been broken-

Hearted

Ooooooooooo since the day we

Parted

Why? Why?

Did I

Ever

Let you go?...

To this day, Sinatra-tologists regard the song as the finest expression of Sinatra's ambivalence between his love for his first wife, Nancy, and his longing for his second wife, Ava Gardner.

And the songwriters? They went on to have successful careers of their own…