“My Way”

So I was recently introduced to the Frank Sinatra[1]
Ok, ok, I know what you’re gonna say—this is a Jacques Revaux/Cloclo song, and Frank Sinatra had no busi—god damn it, man, it’s his signature song! Just let him have this!
[2]
and besides, we’re gonna be continuing the Paul Anka lyrics, and not the original nonsense about getting dressed and drinking coffee and making love and whatever
[3]
By the way, did you know that Joe Dassin’s father was on the Hollywood blacklist? The stuff I find while researching the “original” versions of songs. In my opinion, the only popular song that’s unambiguously better than an equally popular cover is Hide and Seek, if that even counts. Sorry, Maggie Reilly.
song "My Way" at a MATS music night.[4]
Though at MATS, it sounds more like this choral rendition. Other great covers include the Elvis cover, this orchestral one, as well as the legendary performance by Sid Vicious.
It’s an incredible song—fun to sing, great melody, satisfying rhyme scheme. However, like any other music-night-ending song, it has one major problem—it’s simply too short to truly enjoy. So, why not make it longer? I thought. To which the haters responded, the crucial thing about the lyrics is the fact that the second-to-last line of each verse rhymes with “my way”, and there simply just aren’t enough distinct rhymes to go around. Well, this blog post is a response to the challenge implicit in that claim!
First, let’s take a look at the lyrics:
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 traveled 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

Yes, it was my way
Ok. Starts out with “highway” and “byway”. I will concede that there aren’t many other words of that format. The main one I can think of is skyway,[5]
When fate had me confined
Between steel bars, and iron ceilings
By morning it would find
I’d broken out, without ill feelings
I’d walk along the road
And see above that endless skyway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
[6]
I don't know about you, but I knew the word "skyway" exclusively from the Woody Guthrie song "This Land Is Your Land", in the verse

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me

From which I figured that "skyway" was just a nice word for "firmament" (c.f. небосвод). Turns out, "skyway" has a lot of meanings, and none of them are the one used in the song.
[7]
Since we’re on the topic of “This Land Is Your Land” anyways, I think it’s very funny how when we learned this song in fifth grade chorus, they didn’t teach us the fourth verse:

There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said "Private Property"
But on the backside, it didn't say nothing
This land was made for you and me
and you could perhaps grant me “ryeway”.[8]
When farmers growing wheat
Would come to me, and offer seedlings
I’d claim to want to meet,
And then unleash my verbal needlings:
I’d say, “you’re growing what?
Come on, get out, this is the ryeway!”
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
[9]
What? It’s like a “wheat belt”, but for rye.
After that, we do run out of rhyming single-word replacements—RhymeBrain suggests “flyway”, but I don’t know what this means—so yeah, maybe that’s all we have.
But wait—look at the third verse! “And may I say, not in a shy way”? “SHY WAY”? This unleashes a torrent of new creative possibilities:
We could also play with the phonetics a bit, and use the pronunciation of “fly away”![13]
I check my seat TV
For news of storms and cancellations
But I don’t seem to see
A reason for these irritations
The boarding door has closed
So are we gonna start to fly away?
Or else—oh, you know me—I’ll do it my way
Or maybe Sinatra is a fan of Chinese dissident artists?[14]
In two thousand and eight
The Sichuan earthquake crisis crested
And when investigat-
ing parties start to get arrested
For economic crimes
(You know I’m talking about Ai Wei-
Wei) Yes, he sure can say, “I did it my way”
Or maybe he has opinions on bootloaders?[15]
When linux users tell
Me that I’m wrong (and I must preface—
I don’t know what to do
With FAT, exFAT, or NTFS:
My boot partition type’s
FAT32, the UEFI way)
My bootloader will scream “I did it my way”!
The possibilities are endless![16]
I’m running out of time before I have to publish this blog, so here are my other categories of ideas: