This year marks the 35th anniversary of one of the most famous songs in the American songbook. So start spreadin’ the news!
Well into the era of rock n’ roll, which made crooners like Frank Sinatra singing songs by classic teams like John Candor and Fred Ebb passé, Sinatra recorded a Candor and Ebb song in 1980, and it became one of his signature songs. But Sinatra didn’t originate the song. The first to sing it was Liza Minnelli. The song’s full, real title is “Theme From New York, New York,” with New York, New York being an old fashioned big-screen movie musical directed by Martin Scorsese released in 1977. The movie, Scorsese’s first after Taxi Driver, was a massive flop, and Minnelli’s version of the song went largely unnoticed.
Two years later, arranger Gordon Jenkins came to Frank Sinatra with an idea called Trilogy, a career-spanning triple album that would include re-recordings of past Sinatra hits (“The Past”), Sinatra takes on rock-era songs (“The Present”), and a bizarre song cycle (“The Future”) in which Sinatra reflects on his life and travels through space. (Seriously.) For “The Present,” Sinatra picked Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” the Beatles’ “Something”…and “New York, New York.” It became an unlikely comeback hit for Sinatra, peaking at #32 on the pop chart—his last top 40 hit, and first since “My Way” in 1969.
At the 1981 Grammy Awards, “New York, New York” was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year but lost both to Christopher Cross’s “Sailing.
The Sinatra version became a signature song for the city of New York as well. It’s played during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, just after the New Year’s ball drops in Times Square, and just after every New York Yankees home game. If the Yankees win, fans hear the Sinatra version. If they lose…fans get the Minnelli.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ61SeciHgQ