My Way - Frank Sinatra

"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. 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."

"My Way" is too restrained to announce itself as a hype song. It does not kick the door open. It walks in slowly, straightens its tie, smoothes its jacket, and places the receipts on the table.

That may be why it works.

Most hype songs tell you what you are about to do. This one looks backward and asks whether you actually did it. Did you choose a course? Did you carry the weight? Did you say what you meant instead of borrowing the safer words? Did you take the blows without letting them rewrite the record?

That is a different kind of energy. Not adrenaline. Accounting.

The Sinatra and Pavarotti performance makes the song feel even larger because the voices do not compete with the message. They carry it. One voice sounds like a person reviewing the road. The other sounds like the road answering back.

The lines about regrets matter because the song is not pretending the life was flawless. A perfect record would be propaganda. The power comes from accepting the misses without allowing them to become the whole story.

And then there is the refusal to kneel, not as swagger, but as honesty. To say the thing you truly feel. To survive the consequences of saying it. To let the record show that the choices were yours, even when the outcomes were very expensive.

That is hype music for people who have already been through something.

It does not make me want to charge onto a field. It makes me want to stand still for a moment, look at the strange route behind me, and admit that I recognize the person who took it.

Not perfectly. Not painlessly. But deliberately.

My way.