BOOK REVIEW – Chicken Soup For The Soul, The Story Behind The Song

Chicken Soup For The Soul, The Story Behind The Song

ISBN-10: 1935096400
ISBN-13: 978-1935096405
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul (November 1, 2009)
Language: English

I opened The Story behind the Song and flipped to its table of contents. Within its 424 pages, 101 contemporary musicians had written about their music, what it was, and why it was written. Two of them, My Way and Garden Party, caught my immediate attention.

I was born in the 40’s in Hudson County, home of Frank Sinatra. When he first worked in nightclubs like Transfer Station’s Melody Club, my father saw him often busing to the union officers who frequented the place. Because my father told me so much about him, I was curious what would be said in what perspective.

Paul Anka a name well known in my generation, was a young, established singer-writer by the 60’s when in Paris he bought the rights to music that would become My Way. He had met Sinatra and knew he was contemplating retiring from the public eye because of his alleged Mafia connections, when he sent him the song.

Paul believed that the Muse help create and it takes “the right artist to make a song happen”. So he checked his ego believing he was to young to record it, and the rest is history. Frank Sinatra’s career continued and the success of My Way, metaphoric for age and quitting, was meteoric.

I listened to the radio and Ozzie and Harriet before the age of television. Then in the 50’s TV came into our home and Ricky Nelson just two years older than me, became my first crush. As he performed his rockabilly songs, I dreamed he was singing to me.

Time passed. The show ended. Music changed. Rick Nelson grew up. Music remained his first love. He with long hair, hippie look and country rock sound moved along and reflected new times.

Performing at a Rock and Roll Reunion at Madison Square Garden, Rick Nelson was booed off stage. That is why three weeks later he wrote his own autobiographical personal statement.

‘n it’s all right now, learned my lesson well

You see, ya can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself

He put his life and heart into that 1972 song.

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