My way

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My Way (English for "Mein Weg, (in) my way") is the English-language cover version of a French chanson, which was recorded by numerous artists and best known in the adaptation of Paul Anka , sung by Frank Sinatra . In this version, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000 . The French template comes from Claude François , Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibaut from 1967 and is entitled Comme d'habitude (French for “As usual”).

The original: Comme d'habitude

Claude François - Comme d'habitude

Composer Claude François had been in a relationship with the eight years younger singer France Gall since March 1965 , the relationship ended in 1966. He processed his desperation over this in the English-language song For You , which was written at the end of 1966, but which nobody wanted to sing. On August 27, 1967, François invited the trumpeter and songwriter Gilles Thibaut and Jacques Revaux to his country house in Dannemois . There the song Comme d'habitude emerged from For You , to which François contributed the refrain and Thibaut the text. This new text no longer took up the story of the original English text, but dealt with an elderly couple who have drifted apart and whose love is drowned in everyday life.

After Michel Sardou and Gilbert Bécaud rejected the piece, it was first sung by Hervé Vilard . In 1967, François himself began to interpret Comme d'habitude in his performances. In November 1967 he brought it out as a single on the Disques Flèche label, which he founded; The producer was Jean-Marie Périer. A long-playing record of the same name followed in December, and the EP Comme d'habitude / Même si tu revenais (Flèche 424550) was released in January 1968 .

US cover version: My Way

Frank Sinatra - My Way

Paul Anka heard the chanson on the radio during a stay in France, obtained the rights in Paris from the music publisher Société des Nouvelles Editions Eddie Barclay and wrote an English text on his return in New York City . The occasion was a conversation with Frank Sinatra in Miami , during which Anka learned that Sinatra wanted to withdraw from the music business because of the constant mafia allegations. Amazed by this, Anka studied the melody, to which he wrote a text focused on Sinatra in five hours at night. Anka's English text is about a retrospective of a man's full life that he lived his own way. The metaphorical intro is about the end soon, with Sinatra facing the last falling curtain. After Anka had finished the text, he called Sinatra at the Caesars Palace Hotel in Las Vegas , where Sinatra was visiting to show him his work. On December 11, 1968, François received a telegram announcing that Sinatra would sing the song.

Recording and publication

Frank Sinatra recorded the piece on December 30, 1968 on Western Recorders in Hollywood in two takes and less than half an hour. His singing was accompanied by the orchestra of music producer and arranger Don Costa , conducted by Bill Miller . The arrangement begins with a chord progression that reveals aspiration and slowly builds up to a dramatic end.

The single My Way / Blue Lace was released in March 1969 by Reprise Records . In the USA, the commercial success of the single was limited, as it only reached number 27 in the charts . In Great Britain, the single remained in the charts for 42 weeks until September 1971, reached number 5 and sold over a million copies. Sinatra initially disliked the autobiographical song, but it became one of his signature tunes. On June 14, 1969, the LP My Way hit the shelves, reaching number 11 on the LP charts. Paul Anka had earned over $ 200,000 royalties with his English text by 1971 .

Sinatra maintained his critical opinion about the quality of the song and tried at times to ban the piece from his concert appearances, or only from five to three, despite its popularity - which he had increased with his 1974 concert special The Main Event To perform stanzas in an abbreviated text version (1981–1987). In the end he kept it in the program until the end of his stage career in 1994 and sang it more than a thousand times, most recently as a regular closing song. Sinatra's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000 .

More shots

There are at least 150 cover versions of the piece. Claude François sang Comme d'habitude for the first time after the success of My Way at the Paris Olympia , released in December 1969 on his LP Claude François à l'Olympia . Paul Anka sang it live for the first time on May 7, 1969 in New York's Copacabana nightclub (LP Sincerely - Live at the Copa ). The first studio version of Ankas is from September 5th, 1969 (LP Life Goes on ).

Other versions are from

There are other language versions of Mary Roos among others with the title So leb 'Dein Leben (Text: Charly Niessen ; December 1970), also sung by Mary and Gordy (1981) and Mireille Mathieu (1985). Other German versions of the text were sung , for example, by Harald Juhnke ( Was ich im Leben ... ; 1991), Fettes Brot ( My Way by Nature , LP Brot ; February 2010) or Stephan Weidner ( Mein W ).

While the German text is based on the English text, the Spanish version Como acostumbro by La Lupe (1970) is based on the French original text. Successful Spanish versions also come from the Gipsy Kings ( A Mi Manera ; 1989) and Julio Iglesias ( Mi Manera , with text by Roberto Livi; October 1998). In 1977, Claude François wrote a back translation of Anka's text into French for his own original composition, which he then sang himself.

Others

  • In 1968 David Bowie wrote an English version of Comme d'habitude under the title Even Fools Learn to Love (which has not yet been published) , but Anka had anticipated him by securing the English-language music rights. Bowie's musical answer to that was Life on Mars? (1971), which has the same chords as My Way for a long time .
  • The song When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way' by Sparks of 1994 makes reference to Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious' interpretations of this song.
  • The chorus of the song It's My Life by Bon Jovi (which was subsequently also covered by Paul Anka) refers in the line "My heart is like an open highway / Like Frankie said, I did it my way." To the well-known version of Frank Sinatra.
  • My Way is the song most played at funerals in the UK .
  • Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder wanted My Way at the Great Zapfenstreich .
  • The global identification of the song with Sinatra became so strong that they even found entrance into the language of international diplomacy in October 1989 after the then foreign affairs spokesman of the Soviet government Gennadi Gerasimov by Mikhail Gorbachev practiced policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states of the Warsaw Pact referred to My Way as the Sinatra Doctrine .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Memoirs of Claude François on the genesis of Comme d'habitude ; abridged excerpt from: Fabien Lecoeuvre, Claude François. Je soussigné. Paris: Albin Michel, 2007. ISBN 978-2-226-18060-5 .
  2. ↑ Article from Le Monde of July 18, 2005; printed in: Grégoire Allix / Harry Bellet / Stéphane Davet / Antoine Deshusses u. a., Les tubes de l'été. Chansons cultes, des sixties aux années 2000 , Paris: Librio, 2006, ISBN 2-290-35355-8 .
  3. ↑ a b Pierre Pernez, Claude François en Souvenirs , 2013, o. P.
  4. ^ Mark J. Davis, Legal Issues in the Music Industry , 2010, p. 107
  5. ↑ Jack Canfield / Marc Victor Hansen / Jo-Ann Geffen, Chicken Soup For The Soul , 2014, o. P.
  6. ↑ Luiz Carlos do Nascimento Silva, Put Your Dreams Away: A Frank Sinatra Discography , 2000, p. 426
  7. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 293
  8. ^ David Ward, Lucy Ward: My Way tops funeral charts. In: The Guardian , November 17, 2005.
  9. ↑ Schröder wants "My way" In: Spiegel Online , November 18, 2005.

Web links

  • My Way (information about the song history and Sinatra's versions, German translations of the French and English lyrics)