Unlike Elvis Presely, Chuck Berry, or the Beatles, Frank Sinatra did not "change history" or change the course of popular culture or music. Despite the many appreciations and critiques presently trying to make sense of the outpouring of emotion in response to his very expected demise, he did not "represent" a generation as did Kurt Cobain's music and manner of passing. His death was not the end of any particular era. The '40s and '50s were a long time ago and there's nothing to suggest that Sinatra's life or work represented anything significant about that era or that his significance as a singer is somehow connected to anything which characterizes that time. It's quite astonishing to see so many erudite critiques look right past the obvious: while Sinatra the man never did make any history, the embodied grain of his voice was a history of enormous significance. It was, like Presley's, like Marvin Gaye's, and Billie Holliday's, like few others, an historical voice, a voice which stood alone and made new meaning every time it was embodied.

As Barthes made clear [1], there is "meaningful" singing and singing that makes meaning. When Simon Frith read Barthes' "The Grain of the Voice," he immediately thought of Elvis Presley: this, finally, was it. " . . . in the end this is the only way to explain his appeal: not in terms of what he 'stood for,' socially or personally, but by reference to the grain of the voice . . . He celebrated -- more sensuously, more voluptuously than any other rock 'n' roll singer -- the act of symbol creation itself."[2] The physicality of the voice, the emobodied nature of it of as a real thing in an of itself was the true source of the difference between the rare voice that bears a grain and the rest that do not.

Although Sinatra's voice represented nothing beyond itself, it made a whole world in itself. His voice did not reflect any particular social movements, nor any of the emotions he sang "about": the voice did not evoke yearning, loss, dislocation, weakness or strength; the grain of his voice simply - or not so simply - was those things. The grain of his voice was historically significant in itself; it was a world-historical event. And it is perhaps the very physicality of the voice - its embodied nature - which makes his physical death disturbing for many.

The Grain emobodied everything real of which it spoke; it was pain, it was despair; "none but the lonely heart" could - know - its . . . saaaad . . . . . .ness. It was a physical presence of extra-physical meaning. This does not mean the man whose grain it was had nothing to do with it, but the grain is not reducible to the facts of Sinatra's life. We know a few things by now: Sinatra was perpetually unsatisfied, personally and artistically; he was always angry; he was insecure and egotistical. He needed love and never really found it even when it was right there in front of him; he again and again betrayed those who loved him and himself. There is, though, nothing especially special about any of this. So many of us can identify with such a man, and while that is comforting, it explains nothing about the historical significance of this singer, this voice. His rare genius is simply this: he emodied the grain of his voice, and it embodied him. His voice did not express or reflect his life, personality, and world; it was the world around him, and when embodied, when the sound waves traveled from his scarred throat to the ear of a listener who lived that world, it was the truest life of the listener. In the presence of the grain of his voice, the temporal and spatial distance between producer and listener does not exist. The grain belongs to anyone who can experience its physical presence. The grain, like a dream that is too real, returns the repressed in its volcanic and inescapable physicality.

Every rare voice that has a grain is socially subversive by nature. Although it stands apart from mere representation, it is implicated in whatever social context within which it's produced and received. Its very physical realness forces everyone in its presence to experience whatever truths the grain reveals. The grain gathers its bearer's life and world within itself and like the most powerful twister, roars its contents back through the world from which it emerged, often tearing it to shreds. Such a grain is inescapable; it destroys cherished and even necessary illusions; it makes a new world by its very presence.

References

1) Roland Barthes, "The Grain of the Voice," in Image, Music, Text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), p. 157. Translated by Steven Heath.
2) Simon Frith, Sound Effects -- Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock 'n' Roll (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), p. 165.

Copyright © 1998 by Robin Markowitz. All Rights Reserved.
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