My Way

Percorro os cd's na prateleira com a nostalgia na ponta dos dedos. Não hesito em puxar o Ol'Blue Eyes cá para fora e sento-me a ouvi-lo noite dentro. Há um poder inebriante nesta voz, neste swing, nesta forma de dar vida a algo tão simples como uma canção. Não haverá ninguém que oiça esta música cantada por Frank Sinatra e não sinta com a maior convicção "I did it my way".

A título de curiosidade: "My Way" foi escrita por Paul Anka e a história da canção é mais complicada do que se poderia pensar...até Frank Sinatra a ter tornado o que ela é: uma música poderosa, emocionante, emocionada, verdadeira.

A propósito, leio uma coluna do New York Times escrita por Bono onde, a dada altura, diz...
...Like Bob Dylan’s, Nina Simone’s, Pavarotti’s, Sinatra’s voice is improved by age, by years spent fermenting in cracked and whiskeyed oak barrels. As a communicator, hitting the notes is only part of the story, of course. Singers, more than other musicians, depend on what they know — as opposed to what they don’t want to know about the world. While there is a danger in this — the loss of naïveté, for instance, which holds its own certain power — interpretive skills generally gain in the course of a life well abused.

Want an example? Here’s an example. Take two of the versions of Sinatra singing “My Way.”

The first was recorded in 1969 when the Chairman of the Board said to Paul Anka, who wrote the song for him: “I’m quitting the business. I’m sick of it. I’m getting the hell out.” In this reading, the song is a boast — more kiss-off than send-off — embodying all the machismo a man can muster about the mistakes he’s made on the way from here to everywhere.

In the later recording, Frank is 78. The Nelson Riddle arrangement is the same, the words and melody are exactly the same, but this time the song has become a heart-stopping, heartbreaking song of defeat. The singer’s hubris is out the door. (This singer, i.e. me, is in a puddle.) The song has become an apology.