Paul Anka
We all have favorite songs and recording artists from the 50’s and 60’s, but it’s not often we know the history of how a song was written. This is Paul Anka’s story of how he came to write his hit “My Way.”
While Canadian singer-songwriter legend Paul Anka has left a long trail of hits over his 60-year career, he admits that early on, he was terrified to pen a tune for Frank Sinatra.
“He’d always tease me, ‘Hey kid, when are you going to write me a song?’” Anka remembers. “But I couldn’t. I was scared to death. I was writing all this teen stuff.”
Of course, there are few music lovers today who aren’t familiar with the poignant ballad Anka eventually crafted for Sinatra, “My Way.” Some dub it the most powerful of Anka’s many earworms, which also include classics like “Puppy Love,” “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” and even Johnny Carson’s theme song for The Tonight Show.
Anka didn’t think twice 55 years ago when Sinatra called him out of the blue and declared, “Kid, we’re going to dinner.”“When
Sinatra says, ‘We’re going to dinner’, you drop everything and you go to dinner” recalls Paul, who as a budding Vegas headliner in the 1960’s had a friendly tie with the Rat Pack. During the meal, Sinatra dropped a stunning surprise: He was about to quit showbiz. “He said, ‘I’ve had it. I’m fed up. But I’m doing one more album,’” Anka remembers. “He said, ‘and you never wrote me that song.’”
Anka felt the pressure. Still reeling over the news at 1 a.m. in his apartment, he found himself toying with lyrics to a melody he had heard in France. “I thought, what would Frank do with this melody, if he were a writer? And all of a sudden, it just came to me: ‘And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain.’”He finished the song at 5 a.m. and called Sinatra on the spot, promising him a song for his final album. “I knew I had something I wouldn’t be afraid to give him,” Anka says. The next day, he recorded a demo of the song and flew to Las Vegas, where Sinatra lived. “I played him the song and he looked at me and said, “I’m doing it.”
Two months later, Sinatra called Anka again, this time with better news. “He says, ‘Kid, listen to this,’ and puts the phone up to the speaker. I heard ‘My Way’ playing for the first time, and I started to cry.”Paul Anka never knew what a legacy he had created when, at the request of Ol’ Blue Eyes, he wrote this song for Frank’s (presumed) retirement. Frank Sinatra had a mega smash hit with it, and his recording was followed by the Three Tenors, Pavarotti and numerous other big stars who sang the song over the years. Paul Anka is still alive, and his compositions and lyrics are still familiar to many of a certain age.
Source: https://thenewstalkers.com/community/discussion/57321/the-history-of-my-way-by-paul-anka
Editor’s Note: The song Anka had heard in France and that inspired “My Way” was “Comme D’ habitude” by Claude Francois. The title translates to “As Usual.”
In this video, ten superb voices, an amazing orchestra, plus piano, saxophone, electric guitar and extra choral support go well beyond doing justice to Paul Anka’s composition. The singers are Dutch, and you will notice that the majority of the orchestra are women. The performance is fantastic and extraordinarily beautiful. Click on the small arrow in the box to view.
