My Way, My Ass
If there’s any song I hate, it’s Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
Not because it’s Sinatra. Generally, I like Sinatra. I know all the stories about him being connected with the mafia and also an arrogant asshole, but I’m not going to worry too much about that. If I can enjoy the poetry of Ezra Pound, and films by Elia Kazan, I can excuse old Frank for being a bit of a dick and knowing some unsavory folks. In fact I very often do Sinatra at Karaoke events. I swear I’ve got Mack the Knife down pat.
No, it’s just My Way. It goes back to my childhood. It seemed that whenever there was an event where adults gathered, from weddings to my Dad’s union picnics, the band would play My Way and all the old men would sing along, like it was the national anthem or something like that.
As I looked around the room I could tell, although probably not until late in my teens, that they were all full of shit. They didn’t do it their way. Salaried workers, damned near every last one of them. A few farmers here and there, who did it Monsanto’s way or not at all. And that irritated me. I don’t like self-congratulation.
I often wondered, then, what song would be the “My Way” of my generation. It’s “Free Bird.” The crowd calls for it, and reacts to it, in the same way. And it’s just as full of shit. “I’m as free as a bird now….like a bird, I can’t change.” Free, but can’t change. That sums it up. A bird is only free to be a bird and we are only free to be what our natural born talents allow us to be within the context of our society. Fair enough, but not much to sing about.
Anyway, the song My Way was in the news recently in a couple of ways. First, it was the theme of Joe Lieberman’s birthday party. He’s very old and hopefully will be dead soon, but he’s exactly the self-congratulatory sort of old prick I would have suspected of liking that song. Sure, he did it his way. His way was to do whatever the insurance companies, and Israel, and the military industrial complex wanted. Nothing to be terribly proud of.
But while I was reading through the comments over at Wonkette, I was directed to a news article about karaoke murders in the Philippines. By far the greatest number of victims had been singing My Way immediately before getting whacked.
The article introduced a couple of possible reasons for this. One was that it was such a popular song that audience members were frequently outraged when it was sung badly. Another theory was that, because it’s such a popular song, it’s statistically inevitable that it would be involved in the greatest number of murders.
They missed the most obvious explanation. I’m not the only one who hates that song.
www.gurukalehuru.com 
I was thinking about how much “My Way” sucks when those two stories came out this week, and how bad Sinatra’s voice sounds on most recordings of it, his voice was gone by then. I don’t know how many people have covered that song, but you’d have to be a douchecanoe. You’re entirely right about it.
I was also thinking how especially douchey it was for Lieberman to have, and publicize on Twitter, his 68th birthday, with a My Way-themed party. Considering the number of people he’s fucked over this year, it’s pretty damned tasteless. I guess he thinks it shows he’s ballsy; in fact it shows the opposite. I guess he thinks people really take him seriously; again, it shows the opposite and made a lot of people groan. It does show how out of touch with reality he is.
I don’t know what’s going on in the Philippines, the article did say it’s a very violent society, but so is the U.S. We may not have people offing each other over karaoke, but we have people offing each other over sneakers and money, so, really, what’s the difference? I guess the commonality of “My Way.” Maybe if karaoke were more popular here, we’d be shooting each other nightly over “Freebird.”