Show Notes
Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin. Tony Bennett. Everybody thinks they know what the mob listened to because they saw Goodfellas. People, I didn’t watch the life in a movie theater. I lived it. I sat in those clubs. I was at those weddings. I stood in line at the Copa with my father. And some of the men who sang these songs were around our world — everybody knew it.
So today I’m doing something I’ve never done: 18 songs, four tiers, S down to C. I’m not ranking who sang it best. I’m ranking how fast it puts me back at that table. Some of these put me right back in the room. Some of them — and you’re not going to like this — Hollywood snuck onto the playlist.
Sinatra, Dino, Darin, Prima, the Four Seasons, the Stones, Clapton — and the one song the whole country sang along to without noticing it’s about a gangster.
And stick around to the end, because I go off the list and tell you about a song that had nothing to do with the mob — the one I heard in a prison cell that told me I was going home.
Tell me what I got wrong. Tell me what I left off. I read them.
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0:00 What the Mob Really Listened To 1:50 How the Tier Rankings Work 2:50 Growing Up at the Copacabana 5:35 Frank Sinatra: My Way 8:24 Luck Be a Lady & Mob-Era Vegas 9:11 That’s Life 9:48 Summer Wind & Meeting My Wife 10:45 Dean Martin: Ain’t That a Kick in the Head 11:34 That’s Amore 12:11 Volare 13:27 Tony Bennett: Rags to Riches 14:22 Sponsor: Rumble Wallet 16:00 Bobby Darin: Beyond the Sea 17:35 Mack the Knife 17:56 Louis Prima: Just a Gigolo 19:22 Frankie Valli & My Courtroom Story 20:53 Can’t Take My Eyes Off You 21:47 Walk Like a Man 22:26 In the Still of the Night 23:15 Then He Kissed Me 24:19 A Sunday Kind of Love 24:50 The Godfather Theme: Speak Softly, Love 25:57 The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter 27:11 Layla & the Goodfellas Aftermath 28:13 Final Rankings & a Sinatra Story 34:27 How Music Got Me Through Prison 36:30 Closing Thoughts
#Mafia #Sinatra #DeanMartin #MobSongs #MichaelFranzese #TierList
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