Frank Sinatra died last night and he took the 20th century with him. And by "20th century," I mean, more specifically, the American century, the century of Hollywood and Holocaust and everything in between. The century of Las Vegas, of romance, of cool. Say goodbye to the man whose vocal alchemy turned silly love songs into sadness and swing; to the man who met with murderers and martyrs, madmen and mavericks; to the man who ditched Roosevelt for Reagan; to the man born in New Jersey who died in Beverly Hills. Say goodbye to him and you kiss the American Empire goodbye. Frank Sinatra was America, which is to say he was extreme, benign and malevolent, good-humored and bad-tempered, self-obsessed and in love with the world.

There were as many Franks as there are states in the union. There was the husband, the father, the jilted lover (when Ava broke his heart). Of course there was the singer, the sappy young one in his Dorsey days, the gutsy swinger of the Capitol years, the knowing old man on Reprise. There was the life liver, the Rat Packer, the drink drinker, the guy's guy. There was the sharp dresser, maybe the only man in America who could wear a tuxedo the way John Wayne wore chaps. There was the actor: Maggio, the soldier in "From Here to Eternity" who was as quick with a smile as he was with his fists, the devastated writer in "Some Came Running," the "Manchurian Candidate's" nervous wreck.

Finally -- and most personally -- there was my Frank. My Frank isn't exactly a singer or an actor, much less America. My Frank was a character in a story I wrote, a story that has now come true. In my very first music column for Salon last year (which was turned into a public radio commentary of some infamy), I pleaded with television news to avoid remembering Frank Sinatra by playing "My Way" when he's gone. Because I had a premonition that every news outlet, from the intellectual to the inane, would blare "My Way" to honor Frank. Because I love Frank Sinatra but I hate that song. Because I love memorials, but not when they insult a complex career. Because Frank Sinatra is better than that.

So this morning, when I heard that Sinatra was dead I couldn't help but switch on "The Today Show" just as "My Way" was drawing its final curtain. Ditto "Good Morning America." (Only CBS restrained itself, though five minutes before 9 o'clock, that affiliate had already gone local; this being Chicago, they played "My Kind of Town.") I turned off the TV and played all the songs I said I would in my column: "That's Life," "What Is This Thing Called Love," and "Angel Eyes," over and over. And every time Frank said, "'Scuse me while I disappear," I kept shooting the television dirty looks. I could just tell it was full of "My Way." For the first time in my life, it was no fun being right.

It's not like I wasn't expecting this, like I wasn't expecting the century to up and quit, like I wasn't expecting such an old man would die. Now I have to face the new century, the new millennium, without him. Listening to Sinatra's records, I don't feel anything as hip and swank and rejuvenating as "retro." I'm not even 30 and already I feel old-fashioned, left out, left behind. I feel homesick -- for the 20th century, for America, for Frank.