‘Pathetic’ Elvis Presley Was in No State to Cover Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way,’ Said Songwriter Paul Anka

In the 1970s, Elvis Presley began covering “My Way,” a song Paul Anka wrote for Frank Sinatra. Anka saw Sinatra’s version of the song as defiant, and he didn’t think Elvis was capable of striking this tone. He shared why he told Elvis he shouldn’t cover “My Way.”

Paul Anka didn’t think Elvis should have covered Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’

Anka wrote the lyrics to “My Way” after hearing the French version of the song, “Comme d’habitude” while on vacation in France. He wrote the lyrics for Sinatra after he said he felt his career was over. While Sinatra was hesitant to take the song, he eventually recorded a version. Elvis was a huge fan and told Anka he had plans to cover it. 

“‘My Way’ meant so much to him as a song, so he was going to do it,” Anka wrote in his memoir My Way: An Autobiography (via People). “And I’d say, ‘Elvis, it’s not really your kind of song.’ And he’d say, ‘Nooo, Paulie, but those words, they mean so much to me. Boy, I want to do that song one day.’”

Elvis began to cover the song in concert despite Anka’s reservations. His live recording of the song charted higher than Sinatra’s version, but Anka still didn’t think it was a good fit.

“In the end, that song and those words had resonance for him, but not in the way I intended,” Anka wrote. “Given Elvis’s pathetic state at the end, it was in the opposite sense that the words had had for Sinatra. There was nothing defiant or heroic about Elvis at that point.”

Frank Sinatra reportedly felt concerned for Elvis’ wellbeing

When Elvis was a rising star, Sinatra made his dislike for him clear. As his career progressed, however, Sinatra grew more fond of him. By the 1970s, he was reportedly concerned for Elvis’ wellbeing. 

“Tom Jones and I met up for a drink with [Sinatra] in New York and he told us that he had just been on the phone to Elvis,” publicist Chris Hitchens told Express. 

Elvis had recently been hospitalized, and Sinatra wanted to offer his support.

“When I called the hospital in Memphis, the girl on the switchboard asked: ‘Who’s calling?’ and when I replied: ‘Frank Sinatra,’ I fully expected her to say: ‘Oh, yeah, and I’m the Queen of England’ or some such dumb line,” he reportedly said. “But she must have recognized my voice because, a few seconds later, Elvis came on the line.”

According to Hitchens, Sinatra told Elvis to take care of himself. He worried about what might happen to the younger singer.

“I told him he’s got to look after himself and quit fooling around,” Sinatra said. “He’s too young to die, and I told him so.”

Despite its popularity, Sinatra didn’t like ‘My Way’

“My Way” became one of Sinatra’s most famous songs, a fact that bothered him endlessly.

“He always thought that song was self-serving and self-indulgent,” his daughter Tina explained. “He didn’t like it. That song stuck, and he couldn’t get it off his shoe.”

He didn’t attempt to hide his disdain for the song, even in front of audiences.

“We have a song we haven’t done in a long time, and we’re gonna drop it in here now,” he told an audience in 1984. “I think we did it for about 10 years, and it got to be a real pain you-know-where.”