My Way

I’ve been struggling the last couple of weeks to pick out all of the ceremony music for mine and Andy’s upcoming wedding. Like most of the other wedding details, I’m driving Andy crazy by taking so long to reach a decision. I know I’m just being a perfectionist and most any music I pick will fit beautifully with our day. But……….it’s the music for our wedding!!!

All of my hemming and hawing about wedding music though has got me thinking a lot lately about music in general and the powerful influence it holds over our lives. Music can lift us up from low places, inspire us and make us cry. Like poetry or dance, music can tell stories in a unique way—stories about our lives and who we are. Music help us relive memories that time slowly pulls away from us as the years meander by. As a writer, I naturally tend to focus more on the lyrics of a song than the actual tune, but when the two elements are combined they generate a work of art so beautiful you can’t describe it……you can only feel it.

I was replaying a scene in my mind the other day from the movie, Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash. There’s a part in the beginning where his band auditions at the legendary Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee for Sam Phillips. After beginning to play a popular gospel tune of the day, Mr. Phillips interrupts Johnny and the boys to ask if they had something more original to play. 

“If you was hit by a truck and was lying out there in that gutter dying and you had time to sing one song….one song that people would remember before you’re dirt….one song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on earth….one song that would sum you up, you tellin’ me that’s the song you’d sing………..or would you sing somethin’ different?” Phillips asks. 

I think at some point in all of our lives we come to know what that one song is. That song that would let God know how we feel about our time on earth….the song that sums us up. And I think knowing that is important. We can go our whole lives thinking that people understand us, respect us and will remember us. But I think the reality is far from that. Each of us has our secret loves and desires, demons we wrestle with, crosses we bear, and regrets we never make peace with. Those are the kinds of things that, even the boldest of writers, struggle to ever express. But they’re also the things that are the most important to know about someone—even if it is after their time here is done. Knowing those things can transform everything we ever believed about someone—and no doubt, for the better. That one song can accomplish the things we spend years, if not our entire lives, trying to achieve. 

What’s that one song for me? That’s easy. “My Way” by Elvis Presley. 

The song, “My Way,” originated as a French song called “Comme D’Habitude” (“As Usual”) written by composers Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibault. They took it to French pop star Claude Francois, who tweaked it a bit and recorded the song in 1967.  The French version tells the story of a man living out the end of his marriage, love killed by the boredom of everyday life. Singer/Songwriter Paul Anka later discovered the song and rewrote the lyrics as “My Way.” His lyrics changed the meaning to be about a man looking back fondly on a life he lived on his own terms. Anka pitched the song to Frank Sinatra who first recorded it on December 30, 1968 and it quickly became one of his signature tunes. Elvis Presley began performing the song in concert during the 1970s. His live performance of the song featured on his October 1977 TV special was released as a single several weeks after his death and screamed right up the Billboard Charts to #5 and also became a certified Gold recording. 

While I’ve heard Sinatra’s version of the song, Elvis’ will always reign supreme in my mind. You can both see and hear it in his performance of it that Elvis didn’t just sing that song, he lived it. The words cut right into the very corners of his own life. And over the years, I’ve realized that they cut right into my life as well.

In my 28 short years I’ve come to realize and embrace who I am and how I want to live my life. And all of that has been done in MY WAY.

It takes guts to plot a course for your life that goes against convention. It takes guts to reach for more than what is “supposed” to fulfill you and make you happy. I’ve lived with judgement and feelings of resentment from many because I’ve put my writing career ahead of getting married and starting a family. But I know that being a wife and mother would never be enough for me. Anyone can become a spouse or parent but not everyone has what it takes to be a writer. I know now that being a writer is my calling from God and at the end of my life I believe I will be more fulfilled for having done His work.

Living a full life I think means constantly reinventing yourself, challenging yourself and growing yourself into far more than your or anyone ever dreamt possible. When I was little my parents told me I could grow up to be anything that I wanted. So I became a ballerina, a writer, a long-distance cyclist, a left wing in hockey, a motocross racer, a mountain sled rider, a wake surfer, and a cupcake baker. And just think…..I’m only 28 years old. My point is, as C.S. Lewis put it, “you are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” Never limit yourself by what you’re told you should be. Ask yourself what you COULD be.

Regrets? I do have some. But as Elvis sang it, “not enough to mention.” I’ve always done what I felt I had to do. I’ve loved people unconditionally and because of that have been told my love is overbearing. I’ve stood side by side with friends determined to walk through hell with them only to watch those same people leave me in ditches to rot when I most needed them. I’ve believed in and supported people who were at every turn in my life telling me I wasn’t good enough, wouldn’t make it, and should just turn back. It is for all of those naysayers that I get up each day with a beating heart and full lungs determined to keep going. I’ve forgiven people---not once or twice—but as many times as they needed until they finally turned it all around. I entered into a faith feeling largely alone and unsupported. But I was called and wasn’t afraid to answer. And most importantly, I’ve made horrendous mistakes that make me fear the next life. But I believe that God intended each of those missteps in His grand plan of leading me to righteousness. 

I’ve always lived my life according to my own rules knowing that in the end it isn’t about what the rest of the world thinks about me. It’s what myself and the good Lord above thinks. 

When I’ve used up all the talent and energy I’ve been blessed with and pass from this life, “My Way” is the song I want played at my funeral. That is the song to sum me up. Catholic funeral rules be damned, I will still make sure my last appearance in this life is done my way. And I do believe that many unexpected visitors will make an appearance that day….if for no other reason than out of respect for my guts, my tenacity, my persistence, and my ability to love and forgive. 

I’ve always been willing to take the blows it seems….but I’ve always done it My Way.