“WHETHER THE LYRICS were magical or hackneyed, most songwriting teams obeyed the romantic conventions of the time: the door closes before things really get sticky. In Frank’s versions, the music expresses the unspoken details.
“Even when recording the finest compositions, the singer makes minute but crucial decisions that place his mark on the song. Take Rodgers & Hart’s ‘Dancing on the Ceiling.’ I imagine it was written as a whimsical fantasy number, with a clipped 1930s dance rhythm. Sinatra adds one crucial word to the lyric—the ‘all’ in ‘all through the night’—and drags out the thought to give it a real sense of longing. The concentrated meaning he brings to certain lines transforms a polite and charming song into something visual and erotic.”
—Elvis Costello, Mojo (July 1998)