On this day 99 years ago, Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. Here’s a performance that resonates with me now at 5:00 AM PST (and it’s also the title track of his most critically acclaimed album): “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.”

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York Magazine; a longtime contributor to the Washington Monthly; and a former policy adviser to three governors and a U.S. senator from his home state of Georgia.