Singing Paul Anka's 'My Way' can get you killed

Subject: ADDPOP: My Way (Paul Anka)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 12:12 PM

Wikipedia says: "My Way" is a song popularized in 1969 by Frank Sinatra set to the music of the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed by Jacques Revaux with lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and Claude François and first performed in 1967 by Claude François. Its English lyrics were written by Paul Anka and are unrelated to the original French song.

I'm a Catholic church musician, and sing a lot at funerals. Church rules frown on recorded music, but lots of families want Sinatra's "My Way" played at the funeral Mass when the crotchety family patriarch finally kicks the bucket. Some priests will allow it, some won't. I hate it, but it's the priest who gets to decide.

So, for the sake of completeness, here are the Paul Anka lyrics.


MY WAY (from the Anka-Sinatra Duet)
(Paul Anka)

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain.
My friends, I’ll say it clear,
And state my case, of which I’m certain.
I’ve lived a life that’s full,
I traveled each and every highway.
And more, much more than this, I did it my, my way.

Regrets, I’ve had a few,
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.
And I planned each charted course, each careful step along life’s by way
And more, much more than this, I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew,
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way.

I loved, I laughed, I cried
I had my fill, my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing.
Just to think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way,
Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way.

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has not
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.

To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my, my way.

Paul Anka duet with Frank Sinatra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZzYDKR-KTA

Paul Anka Solo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nejyRDtFOm8

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 02:30 PM

When they named a road after Sinatra in Las Vegas I always thought they shoild have called it 'My Way'

:D

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: John Hardly
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 01:46 PM

Wow. That Stephen Bishop song "On And On" sure was prescient when it said "...puts on Sinatra and starts to die..."

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 11:51 AM

Listen to this as a pure musical version and perhaps you can forgive people for liking the song.


A Mi Manera -- Gipsy Kings

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Goose Gander
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 11:21 AM

Little Orphan Annie sung, "I did it my whey."

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Jim McLean
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 07:38 AM

In Glasgow they sing 'I done it my way'.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Artful Codger
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 11:12 PM

For the record, I prefer grenades. More compact, flashier, and not only do you take out the singer but anyone who would actually sit close to a karaoke stage. Call it natural selection.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: olddude
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 11:10 PM

don't be silly it should get ya killed!!

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Artful Codger
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 11:06 PM

Must be a new style of tommy gun. The old style would only fit in a hurdy-gurdy case.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: frogprince
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 10:19 PM

Gotta admire that Chongo; he's got real two-fisted guts on his shoulders!.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 10:16 PM

I can understand this situation perfectly. I love Sinatra, but there are limits to how many really BAD renditions of that particular song by untalented losers even I can take. I once put fifteen .44 cal. rounds into a guy for singin' "My Way" at a place in Atlantic City called The Rhesus Club. He'd been stickin' his big nose into my business and monkeyin' around where he had no right to be. He'd been pickin' fruit off other people's trees. This was the kinda guy who leaves a trail of fresh banana peels everywhere he goes...just so someone else will slip on one and throw his back out or bust his head. He was a few coconuts short of a full deck and he was skatin' on thin ice. When he walked out on stage and did that song it was the last straw. I saw red. I went ape. I opened up my violin case, took out my trusty tommy gun, "Sal", and ventilated the lousy mango-picker.

LH is right. I would LOVE the Phillipines.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Goose Gander
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 01:50 PM

We need to appoint a UN committee to study this phenomenon, and - if necessary - ban ALL violence-inducing music.

Imagine, a world without karoake . . . future generations will thank us.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 10:33 AM

Here's a quote from the article Bobad linked:

"Are the killings 1) the natural byproduct of the country's culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there 2) something inherently sinister in the song?"
========
That is a question that only a journalist could ask. Cause I'm pretty sure the answer is 1).

Even though 'My Way' is tedious, whiny and self-centered, I don't believe it inspires homicide. So many pop songs are tedious, whiny and self-centered that the streets of Manila would be carpeted in corpses.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: GUEST,LTS on the sofa
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 08:28 AM

Depends if you sing it from the book......

LTS

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 08:16 AM

Then there's the other parody of the song, tracing the successful career of a university professor, titled "I Did It Their Way."

Midchuck-

I'm surprised you didn't offer as an alternative your own parody of "Fox on the Run."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: bankley
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 10:01 PM

how about 'I Did it Sideways' ?

thank you Mr. Anka, see what you started..

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 08:55 PM

Yeah, it's like an anthem for the fatuous! ;-) Shane has always done it "his way", and just look where it's gotten him. Winners of the Darwin Awards are much the same. Then there was Hitler. And Idi Amin.

The examples are endless.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: kendall
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 08:34 PM

My friend, Gordon said when he lived in Philly he went out the back door and in the alley were two winoes. They were braced up against the wall singing "I did it my way".

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Artful Codger
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 07:38 PM

Makes me wonder: does Burger King get drive-by karaoke singings in the Philippines? "I had it MY-Y-Y WAY-Y-Y!"

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Artful Codger
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 07:30 PM

Just proves: doing it your way can provoke them to do it their way.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 05:51 PM

People used to like to have the Ol' Blue Eyes recording of "My Way" played at the end of funerals, but most Catholic churches I know of have banned the song. Just doesn't quite fit with a church service, even if it IS the funeral of a Sinatra fan.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 05:50 PM

At a recent funeral near me, the exit song from the crem chapel was Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust"...

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Cool Beans
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 05:23 PM

Singing my way can get you booed off the stage, but not killed.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 04:53 PM

My friend's mother was very controlling, so...at her funeral, her daughter played that song.   Everyone was chuckling, even the vicar.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 04:39 PM

i much prefer David Bowie's version: "Life on Mars"

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Midchuck
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 03:55 PM

Well, you could always sing a more appropriate song.

Peter

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: open mike
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 03:17 PM

i promise not to sing it!
on a hill near here there is a cross
with "my way" on it...commemorating
a teenage suicide victim..

so it does remind me of death...

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 02:56 PM

It doesn't surprise me a bit that public singings of "My Way" have resulted in people getting killed. ;-) It's one of the most arrogant, pretentious, annoying songs in history...unless you just do it for laughs like Syd Vicious did.

The Phillipines sounds like the PERFECT society for Chongo Chimp. He would be in his element there, surrounded by the possibility of fatal violence at all times while enjoyably attending the watering hole of his choice. Chongo always packs deadly firepower, specially when he goes to Karaoke bars. Furthermore, people are always looking at him "the wrong way" for some reason. Chongo doesn't put up with much of that.

Subject: RE: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 01:56 PM

Good grief! I always thought karoke was criminal. Now there's proof.

Subject: Singing 'My Way' can get you killed.....
From: bobad
Date: 07 Feb 10 - 01:44 PM

...in the Philippines.

Story HERE.