themes of loss and love's bittersweet relationship to loss pervade the album. yet the ending tone is not one of despair, but of hope and survival as made possible by cathartic reflection. perhaps given as kindly advice by a person of experience, jonathan schwartz believes the album refrains from being "mushy" but instead presents the material in a stately manner. sinatra's next album, "songs for swingin' lovers", seems to follow up on this promise by depicting an individual who is "free to enjoy women again". these two albums well represent the "heartbroken/hedonistic duality" of sinatra's persona in the mid-1950s.