"Nancy Sinatra" - Sinatra, Nancy
Album
U2 Related Content:
- "Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad" (Studio Version - Nancy Sinatra) - Nancy Sinatra (featuring Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton) (04:25)
Full Track Listing:
- Burnin’ Down the Spark (4:25)
- Ain’t No Easy Way (3:23)
- Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time (3:51)
- Don’t Mean Nothing (2:45)
- Momma’s Boy (3:03)
- Let Me Kiss You (3:24)
- Baby Please Don’t Go (2:56)
- About a Fire (3:29)
- Bossman (2:59)
- Baby’s Coming Back to Me (3:10)
- Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad (4:24)
Background Information
The song “Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad” was written by Bono for Frank Sinatra in 1992. It remained unrecorded by Sinatra, but in 1995, Bono and The Edge recorded a version of the song for Frank Sinatra’s 80th Birthday. The televised birthday tribute aired, and the performance by Bono and The Edge was played for Sinatra, on November 19, 1995. The recording by Bono and The Edge was used to fill out the b-sides for the single “If God Will Send His Angels” when the band ran short of recorded material for this single. Nancy Sinatra, Frank’s daughter, approached Bono in 2003 to ask permission to record the song. Sinatra mentions “It’s a little difficult emotionally because this is about Dad, but it’s a bang-on description of him.”
In August of 2003 reports started to circulate in the news that Bono was considering suing Nancy Sinatra. As the story was published, Bono had sent a demo tape of him singing the song to her to pass along to her father and she had recorded vocals and had them overlaid over the song without permission and had plans to release the song. Principle Management was quick to issue a denial of these stories, “Contrary to recent press reports Principle Management wishes to make clear that neither Bono nor U2 are suing Nancy Sinatra over her use of their song Two Shots Of Happy One Shot Of Sad. There is no truth whatsoever in the story. U2 had hoped that Frank Sinatra would one day cover the song which they released as a b-side in December 1997. The track has now been covered by Nancy Sinatra with U2’s full knowledge and will appear on her forthcoming album. Any press quotes attributed to U2’s manager Paul McGuinness on this matter are untrue.”
Not only were the press wrong with the story that Bono had not given her permission, they missed another very important fact. U2 were so ok with her covering the song, that Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton both play on the song, recorded at Olympic Studios in London. Thus all four members of U2 are involved in this song, with Bono and The Edge having written the song, and Adam and Larry performing on drums and bass on the track for Nancy Sinatra.
On Nancy Sinatra’s versions, she changes some of the pronouns in the song to a third person point of view, so that the song intended to be sung by her father in the first person, now became a song about her father. Nancy posted about the experience recording the song and admitted to getting more than a few of the lines incorrect: “You wanna know something funny? After singing this song for about a year, I finally saw the sheet music and realized I’ve been singing it wrong. So the other day, I went BACK to the studio and redid some of the lines so that it will be correct in the new album. BOY! Did I feel stupid…”
The song featured on her album “Nancy Sinatra” released in the fall of 2004. It was also released in the UK as a b-side to the single “Burnin’ Down the Spark”. The album was partially produced by Sinatra’s daughter AJ (Frank Sinatra’s granddaughter) who also picked the running order of the CD.
Liner Notes
Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad: Music: Bono & The Edge. Lyrics: Bono. Published by Universal Music Publishing BV except Blue Mountain Music Ltd (UK), Mother Music (Irl.). Recorded at Olympic Studios, London & Sonora Recorders, Los Angeles. Larry Mullen: Drums. Adam Clayton: Bass. Don Randi: Piano. John de Patie: Guitar. Lanny Cordola: Guitar. Produced by AJ & Matt Azzarto and Don Fleming. Mixed by Keith Barrows at Sonora Recorders, Los Angeles. 2nd Engineer: Dan Hoal. Mastered by Kris Solem at Future Disc, Los Angeles.