And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain...
My Way is such a famous song, it's hard to believe that the Beatles were on the verge of breaking up when Frank first recorded it. It feels like it must have been around well before 1969. But the French song, "Comme d'habitude", it was based on was only written two years earlier. The lyrics to that are very different from the ones Paul Anka wrote for Frank though... after old blue eyes told Paul he was quitting the music business because he was sick of it. Talk about a comeback...
Frank apparently came to hate My Way though, and Leonard Cohen only liked Sid Vicious's version. Call me a traditionalist, but I still think Frank's take is unbeatable... although I do have a fondness for Shane MacGowan's version. Not to mention Elvis and Willie. Each one can bring a tear to my eye, if the wind's blowing in the right direction. However, they all follow the same Frank's template... unlike Maxine Weldon, who really took it her own way in 1975...
There are a few songs called My Way in my collection that have nothing to do with the infamous karaoke staple. They were all written long after, and all suffer in comparison...
Except this.
Eddie Cochran had been dead almost a decade when Frank first faced his own final curtain. So Eddie had nothing to live up to when he recorded this little beauty in the late 50s...
For the record, Dr Feelgood do a pretty good cover of that My Way too.
Unverified Trivia Nugget:
ReplyDeleteDavid Bowie wrote and submitted English lyrics around the same time. He nicked the tune, wrote some new words, but couldn't get anyone to release it.
I can believe that. He knew a good tune when he heard it.
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