07/29/2024
Join us in wishing Paul Anka a Happy Birthday (July 30th) -- pictured here with Dick and Sally Robinson!
Paul Anka is one of the most gifted singer/songwriters of our time. One of his prolific works is My Way. How it came about is the stuff of legend...
Anka didn’t think twice 50 years ago when Sinatra called him out of the blue and declared, “kid, we’re going to dinner.”
“When (Sinatra) says ‘we’re going to dinner,’ you drop everything and you go to dinner,” recalls Anka, who as a budding Vegas headliner in the 1960s had a friendly tie with the Rat Pack.
During the meal, Sinatra dropped a stunning surprise: He was about to quit showbiz.
“He said, ‘I’ve had it. I’m fed up. But I’m doing one more album,’” Anka remembers. “He said, ‘you never wrote me that song.’”
Anka felt the pressure.
Still reeling over the news at 1 a.m. in his apartment, he found himself toying with lyrics to a melody he had heard in France.
“I thought, ‘What would Frank do with this melody, if he were a writer?’” Anka says. “And all of a sudden, it just came to me: ‘And now the end is near. I face the final curtain.’”
Anka finished the song at 5 a.m. and called Sinatra on the spot, promising him a song for his final album.
“I knew I had something I wouldn’t be afraid to give him,” Anka says.
The next day, Anka recorded a demo of the song and flew to Las Vegas, where Sinatra lived.
“I played him the song and he looked at me and said, ‘I’m doing it,’” Anka says.
Two months later, Sinatra called Anka again. This time, with better news.
“He says, ‘kid, listen to this,’ and puts the phone up to the speaker,” Anka remembers. “I heard ‘My Way’ playing for the first time, and I started to cry.”
Happy Birthday, Paul Anka! Thank you for the music that touches our hearts, stirs memories, and connects us to ourselves and others!
