Skip to main content

TLDR;

  • The song ‘Somethin’ Stupid’ prevented a classic song by The Monkees from reaching No. 1 in the United States.
  • Frank Sinatra recorded ‘Somethin’ Stupid’ with his daughter.
  • Listeners joked that the song ‘Somethin’ Stupid’ was about incest.
Frank Sinatra and his daughter, Nancy Sinatra, near bottles
Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra | Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Songs by The Monkees‘ are very different from Frank Sinatra‘s songs. Despite this, Sinatra and the Prefab Four were popular in the mid-1960s. Once, one of Sinatra’s most famous songs kept a classic Monkees track from reaching No. 1 in the United States.

‘Somethin’ Stupid’ faced off against The Monkees’ song ‘A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You’ on the charts

“Somethin’ Stupid” by Sinatra and his daughter Nancy Sinatra became a huge hit. For four weeks, it was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song remained on the chart for 13 weeks. “Somethin’ Stupid” appeared on Frank’s album Nothing but the Best. Nothing but the Best hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 144 weeks.

When “Somethin’ Stupid” was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, The Monkees’ “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” peaked at No. 2. “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks in total. The track appeared on the album The Monkees Greatest Hits. That record reached No. 58 on the Billboard 200, staying on the chart for 28 weeks.

“Somethin’ Stupid” and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” are both classic 1960s songs — even if one stopped the other from topping the charts.

Frank Sinatra made a song with his daughter Nancy Sinatra

Sinatra’s daughter, Nancy Sinatra, is a singer. During the 1960s, she had some solo hits such as “These Boots Are Made for Walkin‘” and “Sugar Town.” She also recorded the duet “Somethin’ Stupid” with her father. In a 2015 interview with The Arts Desk, Nancy discussed recording the latter song.

“It was very quick,” she recalled. “Dad was recording with [composer Antônio Carlos Jobim] that night and they had a very specific group of musicians for that session and at the end of that session that group of musicians left and another group came in, the Wrecking Crew rhythm section, and I believe they maintained the same string section from the Jobim but I’m not sure.”

Related

Nancy Sinatra Feels Frank Sinatra Stopped Her from Getting ‘Credit’ for Her Songs

What Frank Sinatra’s daughter thought about jokes that the song was about incest

Because of the nature of the song and the recording process, Nancy kept laughing while recording “Somethin’ Stupid.”

“And we listened to the arrangement a couple of times and it sounded great and we went to the mic, we were facing each other and we sang it,” Nancy told The Arts Desk. “We would have printed probably the first take except that he kept making me laugh. It was take two or three and that was it, it was over really fast. We had rehearsed it separately.”

Nancy was asked if she thought it was odd for her to perform a love duet with her father.

“I don’t know,” she said. “People joked about it and called it ‘The Incest Song,’ which I thought was pretty silly. But yeah I can see the point.”

Best in Entertainment