MY way...

About three years ago, the Thespians of the Theatrical Group of the National Technical University of Athens decided to stage Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead". My involvement was incidental, since one of the directors was a fellow student in the Athens Medical School, and it grew, from my simple consultation regarding the translation, to cameo appearance in two scenes of the play.

During the long hours of idleness in dense cigarette smoke, there arose conversations of utmost surreal content.

One of them was about the song "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones. It is a song that outlines the Devil and his expressions and manifestations in us all in a most excellent way.
Which then would be the equivalent song for God?

We immediately ruled out classical and baroque music with a religious theme, since i) musically it would put the Stones to a great and unfair disadvantage and ii) most of those works were commissioned by the Church and the lyrics were from the Holy Scripture, so this music was self-serving (while we may all agree that neither Mick Jagger nor Keith Richards are - or claim to be the Devil...)

No answer was found that night. Much later I came accross the truth. And the answer was so obvious I could kick myself for not thinking of it at once. Of course, without the surrounding thespian decadence and idleness it became a moot point, but still... that song is the embodiment of EVERYTHING that a man's life should come to. In simple words. Without histrionics. And for reasons of grandiose style alone, the singer and the song would be what God would perform were He to show us the way as an entertainer.

Gentlemen, the one and only...:

MY WAY
(By Claude François, Jacques Revaux and Paul Anca)

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full.
I travelled each and every highway
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried.
I've had my fill, my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.


To think I did all that
And may I say - not in a shy way,
"Oh no, oh no not me,
I did it my way".

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way!

What is there that a man can add to this? To be able to say the words of this song in one's final moments will be the last moment of happiness that this short life of ours can give. And if there were a God, I am certain that this would be the way he made us to His likeness, and this would be the way He would appear, for Frank Sinatra was the epitome of natural grand style.


Now, apart from this song and a couple of others, I am not a huge fan of the Rat Pack. But they were all artists who made an impression being elegant and large, drawing the music industry and the media with them, and not the other way around, as is the case with today's puppet - "artists". Those were the times...Where there was Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Dean Martin, we now have Eminem, Snoop Dog, 50Cent, Justin Timberlake... With the old timers gone, popular entertainment has sunk to a woeful all-time low...Pathetic...



Why do I write this? Because yesterday it was Frank Sinatra's birthday, and were he still alive he would be 92 years old. The world misses you Frank...