She Did 'My Way' Her Way

Aretha's amazing, long-unreleased version of Sinatra's hit, along with the classic Sid Vicious performance--and Leonard Cohen's surprising tribute to it.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books and now writer/director of award-winning films, including this one coming to PBS stations in May. He was also a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy.

As some may know, Mikal Gilmore has been one of the finest writers on music for many decades (and author of the classic Shot In the Heart, on his brother Gary), usually for Rolling Stone. He’s been a friend on Facebook for quite awhile, where he often posts eye-opening pieces, including lengthy outtakes and full versions of some of his classic profiles. Yesterday he had a fairly brief (for him) take on a track I was not familiar with at all: Aretha Franklin’s revelatory version of Sinatra’s much-played and often parodied “My Way,” long unreleased as it did not make one of her finest albums more than half a century ago.

Hear it, and a few other versions (and Leonard Cohen on Sid Vicious), below, and read Mikal’s comments. Plus our usual cartoon and this reminder: If you have not subscribed, please do so today, it’s still free and with no obligation to ever pay.

Tomorrow: David Bowie’s incredible history with the origins of Sinatra’s 1969 hit song.

Mikal Gilmore:

I never liked "My Way." I wasn't alone in that regard. In the 1980s I once saw Frank Sinatra--my favorite singer--stop midway through the tune's performance, shake his head, and say: "I hate this goddamn song." He wasn't kidding; the scorn was real. It's one of the few times I saw him break a character's song thought, because Frank Sinatra was the unequaled king of thinking a song through as if it were a fresh divulgence every time around, as if it were a new realization. Billie Holiday and Mabel Mercer did the same thing, and that's why they were among his primary models. But I think Sinatra felt trapped by the banal hubris of"My Way"--because his own genuine hubris was anything but banal: It could topple mountains.

Then I heard Aretha Franklin sing "My Way," and on this occasion she outthought Sinatra. It became her song more than it belonged to anybody else, though I don't know if she ever rendered it other than this one occasion. Prepare for an honest revelation: smart, scary, broken, proud, and a true blues that Sinatra, for all his triumphs, never found in the song.

Frank live:

One of the most famous and much-discussed covers, believe it or not, from Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. Here’s Leonard Cohen’s tribute:

I never liked this song [‘My Way’] except when Sid Vicious did it. Sung straight, it somehow deprives the appetite of a certain taste we’d like to have on our lips. When Sid Vicious did it, he provided that other side to the song. The certainty, the self- congratulation, the daily heroism of Sinatra’s version is completely exploded by this desperate, mad, humorous voice. I can’t go round in a raincoat and fedora looking over my life saying I did it my way — well, for 10 minutes in some American bar over a gin and tonic you might be able to get away with it. But Sid Vicious’s rendition takes in everybody; everybody is messed up like that, everybody is the mad hero of his own drama. It explodes the whole culture this self-presentation can take place in, so it completes the song for me.

Those of a certain age may recall Richard Nixon’s version (via David Frye), the first of many takeoffs, though fairly straight:

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