The Song “My way” is a Frank Sinatra all time classic.

This e-book tells the story of how this song came to be… from the original French version of Claude François to David Bowie and Paul Anka – this song has an interesting story behind it.

Enjoy!

In the late 1960’s Claude François and Jacques Revaux composed and wrote the song “Comme d’habitude” (meaning As Usual)… In 1967 the song was performed by Claude François and became a popular song in Europe.

At the time It was quite common for European hits to be picked up by British or American publishers, who would in turn commission somebody to apply an English lyric to the tune.

Enter David Jones (aka David Bowie)…
The year is 1968, David Bowie is a young song writer employed by music publishers in London… Still searching for his persona eventually to become a famous and extraordinary artist in his own right…

David Bowie was invited to write the lyrics to the French song written by François and Revaux.

You can see the lyrics on the left, Bowie called the song: “Even a Fool Learns to Love”.

Around the same time Paul Anka (Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and actor) heard the Claude François’s recording of the song while on holiday in the south of France. Anka flew to Paris to negotiate the rights to the song.

This is the Demo version Bowie created, not organising an orchestra or even a band, Bowie had simply played the Claude François song at home and recorded his own version over the French lyrics.

The producer cancelled the deal with Bowie without ever seeing the lyrics and went instead with words written by Paul Anka…

Bowie was not happy with the rejection and few today even know that David Bowie wrote the lyrics before producers decided to use Paul Anka’s words.

Paul Anka’s song, we all know today, was named “My Way”, and was a massive hit for Frank Sinatra. The song spent 75 weeks in the UK Top 40 and since has enjoyed many cover versions and remains an all time classic.

My Way
Lyrics: Paul Anka

According to Anka he and Sinatra had dinner in Florida during which Sinatra said: “I’m quitting the business. I’m sick of it; I’m getting the hell out.”

Anka wrote the lyrics as a homage to the ending of Sinatra’s career (and not about the end of life as commonly thought)…  Sinatra obviously did not follow through with this statement, continuing with his successful career.

Anka tried during the writing to get into Sinatra’s character, asking himself: “If Frank had written this, how would he have phrased it?”… Anka felt that Sinatra symbolized the first generation that put the “I” in the center, so he did not hesitate to make use of terminology that places a strong emphasis on the individual, who glorifies himself with almost no trace of modesty or humility.

When Anka finished writing the lyrics he called Sinatra and informed him that he had a song very dear to him.

Anka recounted in retrospect that his record company came to him later in regret for not keeping the song to himself. Anka replied that the song was written for Frank Sinatra, and he was the man who had to perform it.

In a 1974 show in Madison Square Garden, Sinatra presents the song saying: “We will now do the National Anthem, but you needn’t rise…”

Bowie luckily found success in 1969 (the same year Anka’s version exploded into one of the most successful songs of all time) with his own hit single, “Space Oddity”, and his career was well on its way, but he did not forget about the whole “My Way” incident, and on his 1971 album Hunky Dory he had a song called “Life on Mars?”…

The story has it that as a “revenge” David Bowie wrote “Life on Mars?” using the same chords as the original tune of “My way” (see the sheet music compared in final pages) than developing them into a completely different song.

More Evidence to this might also be in the dedication on Bowie’s Hunky Dory album back cover saying next to the song title: “Inspired by Frankie”…
Perhaps without Paul Anka writing “My Way” we would not have the amazing “Life on mars?”…

Thanks for reading

References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Way
2. https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Way
3. https://www.la-croix.com/Culture/Jacques-Revaux-homme-derriere-Comme-habitude-My-Way-2019-11-13-1301060077
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Anka
5. https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/frank-sinatra-my-way-story-behind-song/
6. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/5cSdD53NknkB4nWXRKCWwd4/the-origins-of-my-way
7. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ehoz0g/til_david_bowie_wrote_life_on_mars_as_revenge/