sinatra \/\/ my way
Back in the primeval days of lumbering desktop PCs and peer-to-peer file sharing, I trolled my shallow pools for free music. These were the good old college days, when I’d put Cee-Lo’s “Closet Freak” up to full volume before combining forces with the fellas on my dorm floor to find a filthy party on some corner of campus. The scent of Axe body spray hung in the air, an odiferous stand-in for the testosterone that fogged up the hallways. Music was free, beer came in Solo cups, sweatpants were worn in public.
Of course, like any undergraduate, I really had no idea what I was doing, so I couldn’t even steal music effectively. All I got from the file-sharing craze, before Napster imploded and its disciples faded away, was an enduring love for Elvis and a handful of shitty “mix” CDs that I’d play a few times in my Honda, then shove somewhere to get scratched beyond all playability. I didn’t know what to look for in the ocean of music, so I just kept looking for what I knew. So I collected covers of my all-time (still) favorite song, “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke. And I also stumbled onto “My Way” via Elvis’s cover of the Sinatra classic.
Now, having just gone through the inevitable shattering break-up with my high school girlfriend while also having all the freedoms of a collegian, “My Way” became an anthem to play quietly on my PC speakers before I went to bed. (It didn’t bump like “Closet Freak”.) A little pick-me-up and fuck-you-world for 18 year-old Tyler Re:. Take that! I’m going to do it my way! So what if my way involves cafeteria food and art history homework!
I connected to the song. It didn’t matter that 96% of everyone else feels the same connection. My way!
After a few years, some emotional maturation, and a healthy expansion of my music appreciation, the visceral connection to “My Way” dimmed. I don’t have much use for a fuck-you attitude of a sheen of arrogance, even if it’s earned (which it wouldn’t be).
The artist as a young man.
Reportedly, Paul Anka wrote the song for Francis Albert in 1969, when Sinatra was fed up with the music business and wanted to get the hell out. It would’ve been a great exit song, full of piss and vinegar, but Ol’ Blue Eyes kept recording for the next 25 years. That hasn’t stopped it from becoming one of the most popular exit songs, however, played at countless funerals around the world.
The song’s detractors are fierce. Sarah Vowell calls it: “…the most obvious, unsubtle, disconcertingly dictatorial chestnut in the old man’s vast and dazzling backlog… The only way “My Way” has ever worked is if the person singing it is dumber than the song. Which is why the only successful rendition of it was perpetrated by Sid Vicious. Frank — and Elvis for that matter — was always too complicated, too full of rhythmic freedom to settle into the song’s simplistic selfishness…”My Way” pretends to speak up for self-possession and personal vision when, at base, it only calls forth the temper tantrums of 2-year-olds or perhaps the last words spoken to Eva Braun. Who wants to be remembered for blind rigidity anyway?”
In the Phillipines, the song’s been banned from their numerous karaoke bars because it incites brawls and murder. Seriously. Some people think it’s because the song’s so popular that Phillipinos (very proud of their singing ability) jeer when it’s sung poorly, leading to violence. Or, as Butch Albarracin says, “ ‘I did it my way’ — it’s so arrogant. The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody. It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.”
True, on the surface it’s an arrogant song. Blind bravura. I chewed it up and spit it out. How many singers could croon the song literally and be convincing? Not Elvis. He did it Colonel Tom Parker’s way. The Memphis Mafia’s way. Frank? He just did it the regular Mafia’s way. (Apparently.) Can any pop figure or politician or famous anyone do it “their way”? Probably not.
Contrary to what Mr. Albaraccin says, only a nobody could live up to the lyrics. Nobodies don’t have to compromise. Or maybe nobody can live up to the lyrics.
The artist as an old man.
But Frank could put the pathos into songs. Some singers ripen with age. As their voices weaken, the emotions deepen. Sinatra. Johnny Cash. Solomon Burke. (Ray Charles could always tease out the undercurrents of pain in songs, but eventually his voice flat abandoned him. Do not listen to his duets album. Listen to his cover of “Yesterday” instead.)
Bono writes an admirable article arguing that Sinatra’s 1993 version of “My Way” redeemed the song because, steeped in melancholy, “this time the song has become a heart-stopping, heartbreaking song of defeat. The singer’s hubris is out the door. (This singer, i.e. me, is in a puddle.) The song has become an apology.”
This is the version that 25 year-old Tyler Re: is connected to now. To me, defeats are more interesting than victories. More human. Maybe that’s why I love Andy Roddick and think Roger Federer is more douchebag than conquering hero. That’s why Johnny Cash’s cracked, quavering old man voice is more resonant than his youthful foghorn baritone.
Life batters you and you come through. It’s nothing to talk shit about.
FYI I saw cee-lo live at the goodie mob reunion last friday. if you want to know where he’s been, it sure as shinola wasn’t dieting.
He’s a rotund little fella, that’s for sure. If you’ve ever seen Mystery Men, he makes an appearance as part of the “Not-So-Goodie Mob”.
i like the roddick/federer connection at the end. i think that roddick’s loss at wimbledon last year was truly tragic. everyone expected roddick to lose, the question was just how he would lose, and no one expected it to last 77 games. i remember watching it, broken hearted because he played like he thought he could win. i want to think that he could win and i find a way to alter my perception of the world and say, yes, even when federer is playing at his best, someone like roddick can step up and beat him. wimbledon, at least last year, suggested that that was not the case.