A songwriter returning to his most famous creation, backed by a lifetime of stories and a legacy still evolving
When Paul Anka performed “My Way” on Jimmy Kimmel Live, it wasn’t a nostalgia stunt or a late-career victory lap. It was the composer stepping back into the world of a song that reshaped American music in 1969 and continues to define both Frank Sinatra’s mythology and Anka’s own career.
This performance came as part of a promotional run for his 2023–2024 tour cycle, where he has been revisiting the classic arrangements he wrote for Sinatra, Tom Jones, Michael Jackson and others. His Kimmel appearance was a rare moment of mainstream late-night TV spotlight for an artist whose legacy usually lives in documentaries, archives, or TikTok rediscoveries.
Anka performed the song live with a slightly slowed tempo, closer to the reflective arrangement he has used on tour. Unlike the Sinatra version’s climactic vocal push, Anka leaned into a conversational delivery. The performance intentionally highlighted the fact that he wrote the English lyrics after hearing the French original “Comme d’habitude” in 1967.
Audience reactions on Kimmel’s official YouTube and social clips noted the same thing: Viewers were surprised to learn Anka wrote the lyric, not Sinatra.
This has become a recurring theme whenever Anka performs the song publicly in recent years.
