Their Way

 

Never fully understood the term "chewing the scenery" until I saw this. 

Dorothy Squires certainly "did it her way" - more on that at the bottom.

But first, some other "My Ways"

Presumptuous, moi - Robbie Williams as new-school-crooner

Nina Hagen's is a cover of a cover - her rendition is modelled on the Sid Vicious version - same sickening downswoop glissando orchestration to kick things off, same mis-wordings, same sneers, same punke rocke riffola.

Shane MacGowan likewise emulates the Vicious versh rather than ol' Blue Eyes's

Now here's an actual thesp doing it, Edward Woodward - but ironically, underplaying it, c.f. the hamspectacular Squires at least

An interesting reading from Nina Simone, another singer who'd been through ups and downs

There's HUNDREDS more versions - seems nearly every major  variety / middle-of-the-road type singer had a stab, along with many seemingly unlikely performers (Aretha Franklin). 

The Vicious-style punk shlock take is a mini-tradition river in its own right. 

Here's another of the Rat Pack having a gnaw at it  - Sammy Davies, Jnr

Different song from Ol' Glass Eye but a similar sort of sentiment, verging on a rewrite 

This sort of battered but still-standing grandiosity seems almost inherent to being a showbiz trouper, the sense of oneself as a Legend and a Survivor

You could imagine any number of country singers doing a "My Way" - looking back on the wreckage of their many marriages and their alcohol +  uppers addled trajectories from rags to nouveau riches and thence to ruination.

Couldn't find any rap versions -  perhaps the whole genre is a kind of cover of "My Way"? 

I once saw a TV program dedicated entirely to "My Way" - the story behind it, and people's feelings about it. This is a long time ago.  I was struck by how many people - meaning ordinary folk in the street, canvassed for their opinion - disliked the song. Beyond the breast-beating, they disapproved of its rampant egomania and individualism. These tended to be people who - one guessed - might be teachers or librarians or otherwise working in the public sector. 

And I could see their point: the song is obnoxious, not a good philosophy of life at all, and unreflective of reality (these arch-Individualists always have an extensive support system enabling them, spouses and assistants and so forth).  

It's a sort of Ayn Randy song, really. 

Still, I confess that I've always had a soft spot for it, even before Vicious's reinvention. 

Has Nick Cave ever done a "My Way", and if not, why not? 

Some of his hero Tim Rose's songs seem to come from the same place - "I Gotta Do Things My Way". 

Third track on this great album

This shtick is at the heart of Tim Rose's act and informs  many of his song choices e.g. "I Gonna Be Strong".... even the songs of regret like "Long Time Man" and "King Lonely The Blue" and "Where Was I"  bolster this tough-guy persona. As crystallized in the bizarre, almost drooling liner note for the debut album penned by David Rubinson:

'Tim Rose hits you in the belly....  He is a man, and he is his own man.  His songs are about his loneliness in a world of neuters.... He must be swallowed whole--progressively detailed analyses...serve only to uncover the further depths of this man's masculinity....  And if you choke, and cannot consume--don't be polite--for the last thing Tim would ever do would be to apologize for sticking in your craw.' 

Now, did "Je Ne Regrette Rien" get written before "My Way"? 

But back to where we started: Dorothy Squires. 

Quite a life.... 

I've skipped the whole first 40 years of singing success, buying 14 bedroom mansions with her songwriting hubby (many international hits under the belt, for others as well as Squires), etc. Straight to the juicy, increasingly out of control stuff, via Wiki:

Squires met the actor Roger Moore at one of her parties at her mansion in Old Bexley, Kent. Moore, who was 12 years her junior, later became her husband when they married in New Jersey on 6 July 1953. She later said, "it started with a squabble, then he carried me off to bed." She introduced him to various people in the Hollywood film industry. As his career took off, hers started to slide. Their marriage lasted until 1961, when Moore left her. He was unable to marry legally until Squires agreed to a divorce in 1968 – the day on which Squires was convicted of drunk driving.

Returning to the UK, Squires had a career revival in the late 1960s at the age of 55 with a set of three singles that made the UK Singles Chart, including a cover of "My Way". New albums and concerts followed including concerts at the London Palladium, Royal Albert Hall and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. She issued a double album of her Palladium concert.

In 1971, she filed the first of 30 court cases over the next 15 years. In 1971, she successfully sued the News of the World over the story "When Love Turned Sour", and was awarded £4,000. In 1972, she took out a libel action against the actor Kenneth More, who had mistakenly referred to Roger Moore's girlfriend Luisa Mattioli as Moore's "wife" when he was still legally married to Squires. Michael Havers acted for Kenneth More, who won the case. In 1973, she was charged with high kicking a taxi driver who tried to throw her out of his cab. She was also one of several artists charged with bribing a BBC radio producer as part of a scheme to make him play her records; the case was dropped.

In 1974, her Bexley mansion burned down, from which she escaped with her dog and all her love letters from Roger Moore. 

She then moved into a house in Bray next to the River Thames, which flooded three weeks later.

By 1982, she had been banned from the High Court, having spent much of her fortune on legal fees. Her numerous lawsuits caused the High Court on 5 March 1987 to declare her a "vexatious litigant", preventing her from commencing any further legal actions without the permission of the Court. In 1988, following bankruptcy proceedings, she lost her home in Bray, to which she returned the following night to recover her love letters from Moore. Her last concert was in 1990, to pay her Community Charge.

Squires was provided with a home in Trebanog, Rhondda, South Wales, by a fan, Esme Coles. Squires retired there, becoming a recluse, and died in 1998 of lung cancer, aged 83, at Llwynypia Hospital, Rhondda. Her remains are interred in a family plot in Streatham Park Cemetery, south London.

Thing is, she recorded "My Way" before most of the really crazy stuff happened. It's almost like doing the song pushed over the edge into a kind of loose-cannon state of mind: "I will do it my way, you better get out of my way"

I could imagine a play being written about her last years in Trebanog, the monologues, the memories... 

Or about the romance with Roger Moore, which has a touch of Norma Desmond and the younger William Holden character in Sunset Boulevard... 

Talking of theatricality, "My Way" is a sort of soliloquy, isn't it - Shakespeare goes Vegas.