MY WAY – Frank Sinatra, 1969
If you cannot forgive Paul Anka for the sideburns and for “Having My Baby,” (and trust me, I know how hard that is), there are a couple of things for which he deserves a lot of credit. For one thing, he was instrumental in launching the careers of Steve Goodman and John Prine (more on him to come), and for another thing, he had the brilliant idea to take a modest French tune about a failed love affair and turn it into a signature Frank Sinatra song.
Anka heard the Jacques Revaux tune “Comme d’habitude” and was instantly taken by the melody. The original lyrics, written by singer Claude Francois, were about a romantic break-up along the lines of Paul McCartney’s “For No One.”
But when he first heard it, Anka didn’t care about the lyrics. They were in French after all. He just thought this could be a hit if he could write a bold statement of individuality and get Old Blues Eyes to record it. Both things came true, and “My Way” became Sinatra’s last single to crack the top thirty on the American charts.