Rise in ‘My Way killings’ in the Philippines

Given the well-worn stories about Frank Sinatra and his friends in the Mob, Ol' Blue Eyes would doubtless have approved of the weekend report in the New York Times highlighting a nasty trend in the Philippines - the killing of karaoke singers for singing one of Frank's biggest hits, My Way out of tune.

The so-called 'My Way killings' in the Philippines - where more than a million handguns are carried illegally - have been going on for nearly a decade. They have now become such a risk that many karaoke establishments are removing the number from their playlists.

In a typical case, a 29-year-old called Romy Baligula was halfway through the song, in a bar in the city of San Maeoin, when a security guard shouted that he was out of tune. When Baligula refused to stop, the guard pulled out his revolver and shot him in the chest.

Rodolfo Gregorio, 63, a karaoke singer in the city of General Santos, said: "The trouble with My Way is that everyone knows it and everyone has an opinion. You can get killed."

But some believe it is the lyrics that have provoked the killings. Butch Albarracin, owner of the Center for Pop, a Manila-based singing school, told the New York Times: "I did it my way - it's so arrogant. The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you're somebody when you're really nobody. It covers up your failures. That's why it leads to fights."

The lyrics were written for Sinatra in the late 1960s by Canadian singer Paul Anka, who had bought the rights to what was originally a French pop song called Comme d'habitude by Claude Francois.

As reported by The First Post, Anka explained in a 2007 interview how he had been invited out by Sinatra "with a couple of Mob guys". Over dinner, Sinatra threatened to quit the music business. "I'm sick of it, I'm getting the hell out," he said.

"I was floored by this - no more Frank, no more parties," recalled Anka, who was in his 20s at the time.

So he went home, got out the Claude Francois song and set about writing lyrics especially for Sinatra, choosing language he felt Frank might have used himself. "I used words I would never use: 'I ate it up and spit it out.' But that's the way he talked. I used to be around steam rooms with the Rat Pack guys - they liked to talk like mob guys, even though they would have been scared of their own shadows."

By the time he'd finished the lyrics and passed them on to Sinatra, Anka was certain for the only time in his career that he had written a hit. ·