BATTLE OF THE BANDS: MY WAY

Gentle Readers . . . and Maxwell,

It's time for the June 15, 2015, smack down of the Battle of the Bands. Mr. Stephen T. McCarthy provides us with this information about the bloghop:

The whole thing is really quite simple: You select two different versions of the same song (versions you feel might give each other some competition in the voting) and you post them on the 1st and the 15th of each month.

On the 7th and 21st of each month, you add your own personal vote to the mix, total up all the votes and announce the winner on your blog.

Beyond that, just try to have fun with it and let your readers/voters have fun with it.

Paul Anka, a successful singer in his own right, wrote English lyrics to a French song and called it My Way. Anka angered his own recording company by offering the song to Frank Sinatra, who recorded it in 1968 and released it in 1969. 

Because Sinatra is so closely associated with My Way, we'll begin with his version:




Sinatra died in 1998, a legend in his own mind time. I was never a Sinatra fan. His voice just didn't do it for me. He seemed so full of himself. It must be tough to live with all that adulation and not develop a sense of grandiosity.

A bit of trivia: Sinatra's mother, known as "Dolly," was an abortionist. She did not charge women for her services. She was arrested several times and convicted twice.

And now for something completely different, even though it's sort of the same song. Here's Sid Vicious after leaving the punk rock band, the Sex Pistols:






Sid's (John Simon Ritchie's) recording of My Way was released in 1978––nine years after Sinatra's. The same year, Vicious awoke in The Chelsea Hotel in New York to find his girlfriend Nancy Spungen––his equal in the unconventional and repellent––dead from a stab wound. Spungen is credited with introducing Vicious to heroin, but his mother already supplied him with a variety of drugs.  

Police arrested Vicious for murdering Spungen, but he drew a Get Out of Jail Free card when Mick Jagger paid his bail. In 1979, after detoxing and spending time in notorious Rikers Island, Vicious partied with his new girlfriend and some friends, including his mum, and overdosed on heroin. He was twenty-one.

I don't know if I'll vote for Sinatra or Vicious. Sinatra sang and danced in movies and won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for From Here to Eternity. He sang the conventional ballads loved by millions and was considered a brilliant stylist. Yet, I never liked him, and I've read many accounts of his cruelty to "friends" and lovers. The man had a vicious temper.

But Sid Vicious? He wasn't a real singer. He was all attitude. The Sex Pistols' "songs" leaned toward the nastay. Vicious helped introduce a new crudeness to music. Punk gave outcasts and rejects a home of their own. 

The Ramones, Patti Smith, the Sex Pistols: They led the way toward bands such as Nirvana. 

Courtney Love, formerly of Hole, is practically Nancy Spungen's clone.

I don't think many people would say Sid Vicious was a nice guy, but he was part of something new and different. He had a Sinatra temper.

Please vote in your comments. Do you prefer Frank Sinatra or Sid Vicious on My Way?

I'll cast my own vote on June 21st and tell you the winner.


Infinities of love,

Janie Junebug