My Way

... was based on a French song entitled Comme d'habitude ('As Usual'). This was itself a reworking of a song written in 1967 by the French songwriter Jacques Revaux, which had English lyrics and was entitled For Me.

Revaux sent For Me to several recording artistes, but none of them were interested. One of them was Petula Clark; another was the French singer and songwriter Claude François, who helped Revaux to rework it into Comme d'habitude. François recorded it, and it spent one week at No. 1 in the French charts in February 1968.

Paul Anka heard Comme d'habitude (Claude François's version, presumably) while on holiday in the South of France, and was so taken with it that he flew to Paris to negotiate the rights to it. Some time later, he had dinner in Florida with Frank Sinatra and "a couple of Mob guys", during which Sinatra said he was quitting "the business": "I'm sick of it; I'm getting the hell out."

Back in New York, Anka set about writing a set of lyrics that represented what he thought Sinatra himself might write. According to his own account he wrote it in one night, between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. His record company wanted him to record it himself, but he insisted that he'd written it for Frank Sinatra. (Anka would later go on to record it a total of four times.)

Sinatra recorded My Way – in one take – on 30 December 1968, and it was released in March 1969. It entered the UK charts on 2 April; it peaked at No. 5, but it spent a total of 122 weeks on the UK chart. Only two songs have spent longer than its 75 weeks in the UK Top 40: Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas is You (86 weeks), and Fairytale of New York by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl (84).

My Way became Sinatra's signature song, but he claimed not to like it. Wikipedia quotes his daughter Tina: "That song stuck and he couldn't get it off his shoe. He always thought that song was self–serving and self–indulgent."