{"id":169600,"date":"2025-12-05T13:39:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T13:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/169600\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T13:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T13:39:13","slug":"paul-anka-on-his-way-hbo-documentary-and-70-years-in-show-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/169600\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Anka on ‘His Way’ HBO Documentary and 70 Years in Show Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m so young and you\u2019re so old,\u201d Paul Anka<\/a> sang in the very first line of his very first hit, \u201cDiana,\u201d in 1958. It\u2019s the kind of lyric you could seemingly only get away with when you\u2019re 15, as Anka was at the time, and maybe not a minute later, or at least not much past the point when the goddess you\u2019re singing to is not that much farther along into her teen years. Remarkably, Anka still has that debut smash in his concert sets today, and it\u2019s a moment for a mass sing-along, not mass cringing \u2014 maybe partly out of irony, but also because, at 84, the singer really does seem young at heart, to borrow a phrase from his most legendary buddy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis week sees the home-viewing premiere of an HBO<\/a> Original documentary, \u201cPaul Anka: His Way<\/a>,\u201d picked up by the cabler\/streamer after a run on the festival circuit that included showings in the Toronto and Palm Springs fests. It\u2019s a well-merited run through a life that included becoming a teen idol at 15, an unofficial initiation into junior Rat Pack membership before he was out of his teens, and dual careers not just as an entertainer in his own right but as a songwriter for others, from Buddy Holly (\u201cIt Doesn\u2019t Matter Anymore\u201d) to, of course, Frank Sinatra, with \u201cMy Way\u201d \u2014 and Johnny Carson, with the instrumental \u201cTonight Show\u201d theme. Anka may not quite count as the last of his generation of late \u201950s\/early \u201960s hitmakers, but he\u2019s almost certainly the last to be doing it this robustly, and still killing it on the road, as evidenced by the performance footage in the doc (and in his performance of \u201cMy Way\u201d on Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s show earlier this week).<\/p>\n

\n\tAnka has more on the calendar, including a new album due out Feb. 13, \u201cInspirations of Life and Love\u201d (already preceded by the singles \u201cLet Me Try Again\u201d and \u201cAnytime\u201d). He\u2019s plotting his road dates for 2026, and in the meantime he will be honored by the Los Angeles Press Club<\/a> with the org\u2019s Legend award, presented this Sunday at the National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards<\/a>. We\u2019ll see whether that audience of ink-stained-wretch journos succumbs to \u201cPuppy Love\u201d and putting heads on another\u2019s shoulders, as a young generation has lately been doing in TikTok clips set to his oldies. Variety spoke with him about his long career on the eve of the documentary\u2019s release. (The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.)<\/p>\n

\n\tYour documentary played at the Toronto and Palm Springs festivals, and now it\u2019s found a home at HBO, which you must be happy about.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m very happy with it. It took a long time. It was a labor of love, and the timing was right and the team was right. I stayed away from it for a while. I turned down a lot of people. Now we\u2019re inundated; everybody\u2019s got a doc. But at this age, in this passage in my life, with the right people around me, I said, \u201cYou know, I\u2019m gonna do it now.\u201d Just as I\u2019m doing with the Broadway show. We just signed up the writer today, and we\u2019ve got backers, and it\u2019ll be a year-and-a-half process, but we\u2019re taking it to Broadway.<\/p>\n

\n\tOh \u2014 is that something you\u2019ve wanted for a while, a Broadway musical?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. It\u2019s rough terrain to be in, and I\u2019ve stayed away from that too, because you don\u2019t want to make a mistake there. But for about four or five years now, I\u2019ve talked to different people, and haven\u2019t felt I had the right team in place. Now we\u2019ve just signed Rupert Holmes (as writer) yesterday, and we\u2019ve got backers, in Canada and Primary Wave. Like everything else, it needs the right team to at least get a respectable way there with some dignity; otherwise you can get clobbered. But I\u2019m ready to go with it now, and we hope to have something tangible in about a year and a half. \u2026 We haven\u2019t told anybody. We\u2019ve been holding this down until this week. So you\u2019re the first one I\u2019m telling.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there a throughline that you see as being the core story of the musical, for someone who might not know your story intimately?<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, it\u2019s gonna be this young kid from Canada who left home and got lucky, experienced the American dream at 15, and went from there. It\u2019s like the documentary, in that there may be an assumption that if you\u2019re successful, everybody\u2019s looking at you, and it\u2019s not true. You\u2019ve got to check your ego at the door constantly and realize that in this eclectic world of media, people may know me by name, but they don\u2019t know my story.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou work a lot\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tI just got back from Mexico City a few days ago, and it\u2019s baffling to me, even though I get it. I\u2019m playing to 10,000 people in a stadium in Mexico City, and there\u2019s a large dynamic that are young teenagers running around with albums, only because of TikTok. If you\u2019d have told me 10 years ago, there\u2019s a thing called TikTok, I would\u2019ve told you you\u2019re nuts. But I\u2019ve kept up that international existence. \u2026 I don\u2019t work 200 days a year anymore. I work when I want because we enjoy it and I\u2019m able to do it and I\u2019m healthy enough to do it. But other than that, it\u2019s trying to live gracefully.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat is the number of dates you do a year?<\/p>\n

\n\tOn average, 70, between corporate and tours. It\u2019s just not as heavy as it used to be, by my choice. But to still go out there to a strong fan base, why wouldn\u2019t you? You stand still and they throw dirt on you\u2026 I\u2019ve seen those guys (retiring) and they sit down and read a bunch of books and watch some television and then what else? No, it\u2019s not what I do. If you\u2019ve got your health, you\u2019ve got to stay active in today\u2019s world, where people are living longer.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou say in the documentary that one point of contention when your first marriage broke up was that she wanted for you to retire, and you make it pretty clear that\u2019s the furthest thing from your mind, that you are still in love with show business, and you can\u2019t even imagine that.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo. You know, we\u2019re all individuals. We all come in and go out alone, and you\u2019ve gotta live your life to the honesty that you think prevails in terms of your health and your capability. But I\u2019ve been a creature like that since I was 15 years old. I\u2019ve never stopped, and it\u2019a served me well, frankly (health-wise), if you really monitor it properly.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou know, I started as a writer. I won awards at school. My dad said, \u201cYou gotta be a journalist.\u201d I worked at the Ottawa Citizen as a cub reporter. Where were you gonna go in the \u201850s to learn to be a journalist? Only I got thrown out of a shorthand class. I didn\u2019t like the teacher, she didn\u2019t like me. And I was typing 70 words a minute, but to her it wasn\u2019t enough. Point being: I started writing poems. I saw this girl I had a crush on, Diana \u2014 it wasn\u2019t Shakespeare, but from a teenager\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd ever since, the gravitas and the necessity of existing as a writer was important to me, because back then I said, \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m gonna last in this business.\u201d I had this squeaky little voice, and it was cute and all of that, but that didn\u2019t guarantee me a future. What did was the writing side of my life. So I honed that as a craft. I gave songs away that maybe I shouldn\u2019t, but I did, and that\u2019s been a very important part of my life up until even now, where I\u2019m still writing and I\u2019m very protective of the writing process and those that write. Why? Without that note and that word on it that makes it into that song, there\u2019s no artist, there\u2019s no record companies, there\u2019s no shyster managers, there\u2019s no lawyers\u2026 Without the song, like Shakespeare without the play, you have nothing. \u00a0So the writing aspect of my life was always very important to me, and I respect those that are the creative force, because without a lot of them that do that, you don\u2019t have a lot of that structure that you see. It wouldn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut you could still write and even still record without doing concerts, which you seem to thrive on.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe romance I\u2019ve got with this business is the fact that I find it unlike any other occupation. To still go out and play to thousands of people, and they give me back such great energy\u2026 Who in the hell would turn that down? You can\u2019t give something up like that. It\u2019s just not that kind of occupation. Because as a writer, there\u2019s a black hole between you sitting in your room at your piano, your typewriter or your computer between you and your audience out there. You have no concept of how you\u2019ve affected people, or what they\u2019re embracing. It\u2019s a little different with today\u2019s technology \u2014 you\u2019re gonna get feedback. But think of yesterday when we couldn\u2019t. Point being, when I travel and I\u2019m in front of people, that\u2019s when I get what those songs mean to them. And it\u2019s a fascinating dynamic of an occupation that I don\u2019t see anywhere else. And it\u2019s something that when you\u2019re doing it well and you\u2019re accepted, you wouldn\u2019t give that up.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, I\u2019m not gonna go do 320 days like I used to do. I\u2019m sitting down now and I\u2019m booking until next August, going, yes, yes; no, no, no. But I\u2019m going to cross that black hole that separated me from them and find out what that music meant to those people. And it\u2019s crazy \u2014 in Mexico, they\u2019re singing every word, and I\u2019m 84 years old, so I\u2019m just loving it. The only time I feel my age is when I\u2019m sick. Whenever I feel sick, I get a sense of what age is. Otherwise, I couldn\u2019t care less.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou have Irving Azoff in the movie saying you have the vocal power of a 40- or 50-year-old guy, and that seems born out from the performance clips from recent years. Which is not always the case with some of the elder statesmen who are out there and we\u2019re worried about whether they can pull it off or not, or whether they\u2019re lip syncing, or this and that.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s right, that\u2019s right. Let me simplify, and I know exactly where you\u2019re going. When I started with the Rat Pack, I was the youngest kid to ever work Vegas. I learned things, what to do and what not to do, and I\u2019m young, and I\u2019m in awe of these guys. These guys were not rivals. These were guys that (Bobby) Darin and (Frankie) Avalon and I looked to and then looked at our lives and said, \u201cShit, we may not last. Where do we go from here? We want to be like those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo when I finally got there and I\u2019m working with them, I\u2019m a sponge, and I\u2019m looking at these cool guys and the way they dressed, and they\u2019re smoking and they\u2019re drinking, and there\u2019s women\u2026 Who do I give the money back to, right? But I made some choices back then that I was gonna learn my craft and learn to be comfortable on stage. And I wasn\u2019t gonna become a drinker, I wasn\u2019t gonna become a smoker, because I want to keep what I\u2019ve got going. They already had it going. They\u2019re twice my age, and they\u2019ve done it and been there, but I said, \u201cIf I want to keep this going, I\u2019ve got to stay healthy.\u201d And I\u2019ve lived my life like that right up until today. \u00a0When I go to my doctors and my checkups, they say, \u201cYou\u2019re a 45-, 50-year-old man.\u201d But it\u2019s not a fluke. You have to work at it, protect your voice and do certain things logically that benefit your health, because you pay later in life for the way you abused yourself earlier. Now that\u2019s just my choice; I\u2019m not judgmental about people. And people come to me and say, \u201cWhat (strange thing) are you eating?\u201d And I just tell \u2019em, it\u2019s very simple. I gotta save the voice.<\/p>\n

\n\tI will not go out on stage \u2014 and never have \u2014 and phone it in. I have to respect my audience and the consumers who look at us with all this crazy money, whether it\u2019s us or guys dribbling a ball down the court, and you\u2019ve got to be in shape to give them that night that they expect. I look at some of the guys \u2014 I won\u2019t mention them \u2014they\u2019re lip syncing, they can\u2019t walk, they\u2019re phoning it in. Where\u2019s your dignity? Where\u2019s your respect for that audience that\u2019s paying to see you, to give them what they\u2019re expecting and not shortchange them? And that\u2019s been my credo all my life. And when that ends, whenever it is, I\u2019m ready. Listen, I\u2019m gonna be around gracefully, and if I can\u2019t sing or go on, I\u2019m not gonna do it. I\u2019ve been doing this 70 years already. I mean, I\u2019m playing with the house\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

\n\tGoing way back into those 70 years\u2026 You sort of traversed the Teen Idol era and the Las Vegas belter era, which, for most people, were two different things.<\/p>\n

\n\tTotally.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd so you are looking at the Rat Pack, and seeing that as a more substantial thing you\u2019re already seeing some of your contemporaries in the teen idol world fading away already. So at the time, how much of that was gravitating toward a musical style you loved more, and how much was just thinking that doing beach party movies, or whatever your peers were doing, was not good for longevity?<\/p>\n

\n\tYou gravitate, hopefully, toward growing within the concept of what you\u2019re capable of doing. You know, what cards are on the table? What do you have, talent-wise or creatively, that you can do honestly, without getting into an area that you can\u2019t function in, knowing that you have to grow?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I was 17, I landed in France and I loved the culture; I spoke the language because of Canada. I go to a beautiful classical theater that\u2019s been there forever, the Olympia, where a friend of mine was headlining, and on the bill were these four guys from England called the Beatles. And they were a cover band. [Laughs.] I couldn\u2019t believe what I was seeing, but I liked it. And we get friendly; they come to see my show and we\u2019re talking and I\u2019m saying to them, and they\u2019re saying to me, \u201cWe need to write, we want to publish.\u201d I came home from Paris to New York, and I go to Normie Weiss and Sid Bernstein, who were my agents, and said, \u201cThere is this band in England, and they\u2019re called Beatles.\u201d Nobody wanted their records. If you remember the history of the Beatles, they wound up on a small label, Vee Jay. But in \u201964, when my guys brought them over, they opened the floodgate to pop music.<\/p>\n

\n\tUp until then, we were a group of little pioneers (doing music for young people), but we weren\u2019t embraced or respected. People didn\u2019t like us, other than our fans. But the Beatles opened the door to total acceptability from Madison Avenue all the way down the line, and it was all from the hard work and the time that they put in.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is a fun clip in the documentary where you are singing on television and you\u2019re actually singing a novelty song about the British invasion, naming off all the strange names of the acts coming over from England.<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, yes. I remember that.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid you feel threatened by that or were you already thinking about different ways that you could keep your career afloat?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe were aware of the so-called British Invasion, and that they took us off the radio. So you had to rethink: OK, what am I gonna do? But I was already working Vegas, creating a great reputation as a young entertainer. I was still traveling all over the world. And I was enjoying the fact that they\u2019d opened the doors to people looking at us differently. You know, I\u2019d moved to Italy, started writing with Italian writers, and had the first million seller ever in the history of Italy. So I was learning, I was growing. And at the same time, I wasn\u2019t a group. I couldn\u2019t compete with all those British bands. But I didn\u2019t feel threatened at all. I just realized, OK, I\u2019m still gonna make records. How do we get on the radio when most of it\u2019s British? But I never felt threatened whatsoever. Never. I thought it was great for the business, absolutely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYou had a flirtation with acting, with a role in \u201cThe Longest Day,\u201d but after that and a lead role in \u201cLook in Any Window,\u201d you mostly just did one-off roles, sometimes playing yourself, on everything from \u201cThe Fall Guy\u201d to\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tI did \u201cKojak,\u201d I did \u201cPerry Mason,\u201d I did a bunch of those shows, yeah\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tSo doing what amounted to cameos ultimately appealed to you more than trying to seriously continue your acting career?<\/p>\n

\n\tI always just liked going on stage: \u201cLadies and gentlemen, Paul Anka!,\u201d and you do an hour and a half. Not where you just sit around like that (in filmmaking). I\u2019d always been curious. I wanted to get a taste of Broadway, so I filled in for Steve Lawrence on \u201cWhat Makes Sammy Run?\u201d for four weeks. That was tough. Film-wise, whenever I felt it, or there was a friend involved, I would do it. But to have a full dose of it, not at all, I did not want to do that. I was sitting around too much, and it was interfering with everything I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

\n\tI mean, I enjoyed the \u201cLongest Day\u201d experience because it was one of a kind and today it\u2019s revered as one of the greatest war films, and I was humbled to be in there with all these movie stars I idolized as a kid. The best experience from that was writing the theme for the film, which nobody wanted, frankly, and that\u2019s a whole other story. When I finally convinced (producer Darryl F.) Zanuck by doing the demonstration record in New York and sending it to him, only then did he change his mind and say, \u201cThere\u2019ll be music.\u201d It was the only music in the film. That was a great experience. That and \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d were two big challenges for me that I almost didn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou say in the doc that, in the \u201870s, \u201cMy swagger is different. My vocal is different.\u201d What changed for you then that you became a different kind of entertainer or personality?<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, I got the mileage under my belt. Kids, family, moved to Nevada, lived a much more casual, country kind of life, horses, jeans, blah, blah, blah. That whole pile of mileage that was behind me gave me a good foundation and the \u201cHaving My Baby\u201d happened when theoretically maybe it wasn\u2019t supposed to happen. You know, I\u2019ve had something on the charts every decade, and it\u2019s just from sitting down and trying to do it. That was monumental because after, let\u2019s say, something of a low in the \u201860s, things started to just get to another level at a mature age.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe turning point was when at 24 I wrote \u201cMy Way.\u201d [Anka heard the melody on a French record, bought the rights and wrote new English-language lyrics as a theme song for Sinatra\u2019s planned retirement.] \u201cI don\u2019t know where it came from. I was so young. I had a record company not happy about it because they wanted me to keep it. I\u2019m saying, \u201cUh, ego check here. I\u2019m 24, and he\u2019s Frank Sinatra.\u201d Giving songs away, that was my gravitas, and my plan was to never try to keep material for myself.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s a question. What do you think is your biggest hit? \u201cMy Way\u201d or the \u201cTonight Show\u201d theme?<\/p>\n

\n\tOh, wow.<\/p>\n

\n\tI have to think it would come down to being between those two, in terms of ubiquity.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou know, if you\u2019re talking monetarily, it doesn\u2019t matter. Your songs are like your children. You have different feelings for each of them.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou adapted the \u201cTonight Show\u201d theme from an instrumental you\u2019d already released as the B-side of a single in 1960, called \u201cToot Sweet (It\u2019s Really Love).\u201d By the time it got adapted as a TV theme, Johnny Carson\u2019s name was on it, and the movie explains why.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cTonight Show\u201d theme is a freak. I knew Johnny; I\u2019d hired him and we got together because I ran into him again. He said je was gonna do this show for one, two years max; ha ha ha, 39 years later. But he needed a song, and one thing led to another and we\u2019re on the air forever and we make a lot of money. And the only way I stayed on it\u2026 The band leader, as they said in the doc, didn\u2019t want me to be a part of it. It was \u201cthis kid.\u201d That\u2019s all I ever heard, you know? Because I was younger than everybody. [The doc maintains there was a perceived threat, that if Anka was awarded the theme song, he might muscle in on other musical areas.] \u201cI\u2019m not letting him take over\u201d\u2026 That was \u00a0until I gave Johnny half of everything. [Carson is still credited as the co-writer of the instrumental, the price Anka paid for having it adopted as the theme.] But I didn\u2019t care. I had half of something, and I was a kid.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut you look at \u201cShe\u2019s a Lady\u201d (a hit for Tom Jones), you look at \u201cPut Your Head on My Shoulder,\u201d a big, big earner. There\u2019s different songs in their own ilk that have been important for me.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy Way,\u201d of course, is in its own genre. I will never write anything like that again, and \u00a0I don\u2019t want to. When I started writing with other people, they\u2019d all say, \u201cLet\u2019s write a \u2018My Way.\u2019\u201d And I\u2019d say, \u201cThat\u2019s not the way it works.\u201d So of course it\u2019s \u201cMy Way.\u201d You know, I can\u2019t compare 20 seconds of a catchy little lilt for \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d to \u201cMy Way.\u201d There\u2019s no comparison. If you said to me, \u201cAt your age now, Paul, what song would you write for yourself?,\u201d I\u2019d say, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t \u2014 I already wrote it; it\u2019s \u2018My Way.\u2019\u201d Part of me at 24 is in \u201cMy Way.\u201d Not everything, because I was writing verbatim about a guy that I knew that always used to tease me about writing for him (Sinatra). I mean, there\u2019s things in there I would never say normally. \u201cI ate it up and you spit it out\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s Frank. I wouldn\u2019t write that for anybody else.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd it began my belief in the universe that there\u2019s something spiritually where we\u2019re all connected, something in this universe that\u2019s gifted all of us in one way or another. Because if you ask me how I wrote that song, I\u2019d tell you, \u201cI don\u2019t know where that came from.\u201d So it\u2019s \u201cMy Way\u201d [as the quintessential Anka hit]. But in the \u201850s, it\u2019s \u201cPut Your Head on My Shoulder.\u201d In the early \u201870s, it\u2019s Sammy Davis Jr., \u201cI\u2019m Not Anyone\u201d \u2026 \u00a0it\u2019s stuff like that.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s nice that in the film they show so many different permutations of \u201cMy Way,\u201d from Sid Vicious to Aretha Franklin. The Nina Simone version isn\u2019t as well known; that\u2019s amazing.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s great. The Gypsy Kings\u2019 version is great. Listen to Aretha. I\u2019ll tell you one you should listen to, maybe a touch before your radio listening time. Do you know who Brook Benton is? Listen to Brook Benton\u2019s version of \u201cMy Way.\u201d I\u2019ve been blessed with some amazing singers. And the mileage of that song and how it\u2019s touched so many people\u2026 And to have just Sinatra and Presley\u2026 I\u2019m gonna do it on the Kimmel show Monday night. I\u2019ve rarely done \u201cMy Way\u201d on television. But those two guys alone for me made it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s even a song about the song, which is a rare phenomenon. You might not know it, but the group Sparks had a wonderful song some years back called \u201cWhen Do I Get to Sing \u2018My Way,\u2019\u201d<\/a> about somebody who\u2019s kind of a loser entertainer\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, who does it? Is it a parody?<\/p>\n

\n\tNot, not a parody at all. It\u2019s from the point of view of somebody who is like a failed entertainer who laments he has never gotten to the postion in life where he could credibly sing \u201cMy Way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWow, I gotta check that out. Let me add to that. I don\u2019t know if you know this. There was a story in the news a few years ago, and if you look it up today, you\u2019ll find that that they know of at least half a dozen people that have been killed in the Philippines for singing \u201cMy Way\u201d the wrong way.<\/a> Did you know that? When we\u2019re done, you look up how many people were shot at a karaoke bar for singing the song \u201cMy Way\u201d out of tune. You won\u2019t believe it. Documented police reports \u2014 shot dead for not singing it properly! [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s serious business.<\/p>\n

\n\tNeedless to say, I\u2019m not going in a karaoke bar in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough you certainly do pull off singing it yourself. I think you would survive there.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think I would, yeah.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s interesting seeing some of the performance footage in the new film where you are singing your first hit, \u201cDiana,\u201d and we see footage of the crowd really singing loudly along with the line \u201cI\u2019m so young and you\u2019re so old.\u201d When you\u2019re writing that at 15, you can\u2019t imagine the future irony of performing that in your 80s, and telling a girl how old she is.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, I couldn\u2019t write \u201cDiana\u201d today. It would have to be, \u201cI\u2019m so old and you\u2019re so young, but believe me, I\u2019m still hung,\u201d I don\u2019t know, something like that. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re still still releasing albums, of course, including one coming out in the new year. As far as the stuff from this century goes, you got a lot of mileage out of doing the swing versions of modern rock songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tOh, \u201cRock Swings\u201d [in 2005], that was a challenge. People warned me I was gonna ruin my career. It was after producing the Michael Bubl\u00e9 album with David Foster [the self-titled \u201cMichael Bubl\u00e9\u201d in 2003] that the record company said, \u201cDo a swing album.\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019ve already done it. Who cares if I do this way? But I\u2019ve got an idea. And look, if it doesn\u2019t work, we\u2019ll throw it out, but it\u2019s gonna be different.\u201d I went through about 150, 200 rock songs and landed on those and got an amazing group of people together, musicians and arrangers, and we took a shot. I heard, \u201cOh, the critics are gonna kill you.\u201d But critics aren\u2019t stupid; they know what quality is. I must tell you, trying to do that with those songs, it was something. The one that gave me the challenge was \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit,\u201d by Nirvana. But I think we licked it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt takes a second to recognize it as \u201cTeen Spirit,\u201d your version, when it comes on.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. Dave Grohl called me and he said, \u201cShit, man. I didn\u2019t even know what the words were to that goddamn song until I heard your version.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere have been so many wrinkles in your career, even in recent years, where you\u2019ve been able to have something impact the chart every decade, whether it was a Doja Cat sample or interpretation or the Michael Jackson buried treasure stuff.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo have the last three Michael Jackson hits is something I\u2019m real proud of. I\u2019m pretty proud of that, right down to the Drake (single that made use of the Jackson recording). I never saw that coming. [After Jackson\u2019s death, three songs that he had quietly co-written with Anka circa 1980 saw the light of day, starting with \u201cThis Is It\u201d \u2014 which was credited as an Anka co-write only after the singer\u2019s advisers pointed out it was one of his tunes \u2014 followed by \u201cLove Never Felt So Good,\u201d which had a Justin TImberlake duet vocal added, and Drake\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Matter to Me,\u201d which interpolated another shelved Jackson\/Anka demo.]<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you have a song that is a favorite that you think is maybe your most underrated?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s called \u201cDo I Love You\u201d (originally recorded by Anka in 1971). I had a No. 1 country hit with Donna Fargo. [Her cover version reached No. 1 on the Canadian chart and No. 2 on the Billboard U.S. country chart in 1977.) I also did a duet with it with Dolly Parton (in 2012). That\u2019s the answer to that.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s obviously a very high consciousness of you to this day, but do you think the documentary will have any further effect, or is it for more for the people who already love you?<\/p>\n

\n\tI could never answer that. I don\u2019t know who it touches. I don\u2019t know what needle it moves, and frankly, it doesn\u2019t matter. I\u2019m playing with the house\u2019s money. And I\u2019m gonna go to places where they\u2019re gonna be sold out and I\u2019m happy. It\u2019s just another endeavor that I\u2019ve chosen to partake in, and whatever comes from it, great. I\u2019m not 22 years old waiting for a windfall. I\u2019ve had all of that. I\u2019m just existing. If it adds something\u2026 look, TikTok alone has added to the parameters, and I\u2019m all for it. What it\u2019s done for me with \u201cShoulder\u201d and now \u201cMy Way\u201d and \u201cPuppy Love,\u201d it\u2019s unbelievable. Sometimes when I tour, I\u2019ve got like 30% teenagers. It\u2019s bizarre. So whatever happens with the doc and the other stuff, it\u2019s just gravy on more gravy, you know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m so young and you\u2019re so old,\u201d Paul Anka sang in the very first line of his very…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,4302,85,46,100605,409,100606,100607,100608],"class_list":["post-169600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-los-angeles-press-club","tag-music","tag-national-arts-and-entertainment-journalism-awards","tag-paul-anka","tag-paul-anka-his-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}