Paul Anka: 5 surprising facts about the Canadian crooner ahead of his new documentary

The original "Lonely Boy," Paul Anka's life is an ongoing lesson in how to be a legend. It's all laid bare in the Oct. 19, 2024, release of the new documentary, Paul Anka: His Way, which charts the singer-songwriter-actor-entrepreneur's path from 16-year-old, cross-border teen idol to iconic elder statesman of pop. 

In honour of the documentary's release, CBC Music has dug deep into the wows and whats of Anka's 83 years thus far. From helping to bring the Beatles to America to a posthumous Michael Jackson and Drake collab to the shocking story of the "My Way" killings, here are some fascinating facts about the singular star. 

5. Paul Anka, the poet

Anka got his start as a cub reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, as he told Zoomer magazine in 2013, but he was also a poet and spent his early teen years writing obsessively in his parents' basement, paying particular attention to Shakespeare's rhymes and verses. "People always respect Shakespeare and the play's the thing," he said. "I stayed very viable as a writer, and my cred stayed very real. It separated me from all those other kids I grew up with."

In fact, his first hit song, "Diana," which launched Anka's entire career, began as a poem to a girl he fancied who was a few years older than him. "I love writing," Anka told Business Jet Traveler in 2015. "That's what got me into this business. My first hit, 'Diana,' was a poem I set to music. When my records started selling, I was scared that success might not last and I felt I could always fall back on my writing. So I promised myself that I would write, and if a song wasn't good for me I'd offer it to another performer. Writing's been very good to me. The royalties on the theme for The Tonight Show put my kids through college."

4. Paul Anka hates his hit song 'She's a Lady'

Anka wrote his 1971 song, "She's a Lady," for Tom Jones specifically. He detailed the experience in his 2013 autobiography, excerpted below from Vanity Fair: 

My main problem in writing for Tom Jones was finding the right vibe for him. He's got a great voice, and he's a good friend. "She's a Lady" is not a song I would ever sing myself, but thinking of Tom it just came to me. It started with a verse. 

She's the kind they'd like to flaunt and take to dinner
Well she always knows her place
She's got style, she's got grace, she's a winner.

Ouch! You get that first verse, and if you're lucky you've found your groove and the rest writes itself — theoretically anyway. I don't know where that stuff comes from, but believe me I'll take it. A germ of an idea in your head is all you need, but it does help to have an artist in mind.

When I think about Tom Jones, I get a cocky, macho image — writing for other people is like playing a character, and I thought, "What would this character say?"

What came out was pretty brash and arrogant, and sure, it was politically incorrect, but what the hell. I write like a Method actor, putting myself in his place. It's the shortest time it ever took me to write a song. I knocked off the lyric on that TWA flight from London back to New York. Later I went to my den and pulled the melody out in about an hour and a half. But I can tell you this, I dislike "She's a Lady" more than anything else I've written. I'm not saying I don't have a chauvinistic side, but not like that. Still, I wanted to make it as realistic as possible, and Tom Jones is as swaggering and brash as a Welsh coal miner in a pub on a Saturday night.

In 2013, Anka told AARP magazine: "I love it for Tom to sing. But I don't think it's something that I could have made a hit. I'm a writer first, and I write for people who have different styles. I think it's somewhat chauvinistic, but Tom pulls it off."
 

3. Paul Anka presents the Beatles

Anka takes partial credit for bringing the Beatles to America, spurring the band to become an international phenomenon. He told Indiewire:

"I was in France, in Paris, I went to a theater to see a friend of mine, a French artist. And the announcer said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the Beatles.' And I went, 'Beatles? What the hell is that?' And these guys come out and start singing covers of guys I knew and worked with, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino. 

"They were totally influenced by all of the American blues. All the British bands that I got to know and watched them evolve, they were influenced by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, et cetera. Watching that and kind of being instrumental in the Beatles coming over to the United States, because I came back and told my agent. Because they didn't know. They laughed at me! 'What Beatles?'

"Ultimately, my agent, Sid Bernstein, flew over, made the deal, and brought the Beatles. When they came over, I realized things were changing. I realized if I didn't change with it, I wasn't going to survive it and I just started really laying into my writing. Trying to reinvent myself knowing I'd be left behind if I didn't." 

2. Paul Anka's wildest collab: Michael Jackson and Drake

In an excerpt of his autobiography from Vanity Fair in 2013, Anka writes about meeting Michael Jackson and collaborating with him briefly right before the release of Jackson's blockbuster 1982 album, Thriller. Anka claims that Jackson stole back the tape from their session after ghosting Anka when he wanted to complete the tracks: 

I'm trying to finish my album, and suddenly I couldn't get him on the phone. Then he sent one of his people over to the studio and they actually stole the tapes we'd been working on.

When I heard about this, I went, "What? Michael went in and just took them? Holy shit!"

Then Michael disappears, and only after weeks of threatening did I get the tapes back — finally. But I knew then that this kid was headed for trouble.

I just thought it was a terrible thing to do. How do people become ruthless? What mania takes them over is always a mystery. What happened? This boy was a child when I first met him. Who knew what went on in that family? I saw him a few years after the disappearing-tape affair, at a law office, ironically.

I worked many years with my two loyal and smart lawyers — and close friends — Stu Silfen and Lee Phillips on this issue. They were involved all the way through in the negotiations regarding the posthumous release of Jackson's song "This Is It." The song was originally titled "I Never Heard," when it was written in 1981 for the album I was recording. In the end we prevailed — I got 50 percent of the credit and "They did the right thing," I said at the time. "There were only honorable people involved. I don't think that anybody tried to do the wrong thing. It was an honest mistake."

Some time after the stolen-tape incident, Michael called and asked to meet me. I could tell he was disturbed and sorry, but I mean, what could you say? This was a major talent who got derailed too early in his life. It was never a good situation, and see where he wound up. You could almost sense it coming.

"This Is It," the posthumous Michael Jackson song to which Anka refers in the excerpt, was released without Anka's knowledge, and it was only a TMZ reporter contacting him for comment that made him aware of the song's existence. Anka resolved the legal situation with Jackson's estate, as indicated above, and in 2014, Justin Timberlake released Anka and Jackson's second co-write, "Love Never Felt So Good." In 2018, Drake released "Don't Matter to Me," featuring Anka and Jackson's third unreleased collaboration, and the song used Jackson's actual vocals as well.

1. The 'My Way' killings

According to Esquire magazine's Philippines edition, a "spate of karaoke-related killings took place between 2002 and 2012," all driven by the song "My Way." This is a song made famous by Frank Sinatra, who essentially commissioned it from Anka in 1968 when Sinatra was gearing up for one last record. Anka wrote the song overnight, and called Sinatra the next morning. "My Way" was such a hit for Sinatra after it was released in 1969 that it became his signature song for the rest of his life (though he allegedly grew to despise it). 

A 2010 article in the New York Times estimated that "My Way" was a factor in at least six killings in the Philippines between 2002 and 2010. The biggest issue was, apparently, off-key performances of the song, as in a 2007 incident that made international headlines when a 29-year-old was shot by the bouncer at a bar for singing "My Way" out of tune. CBS reported that in 2007 in Manila, "My Way" was removed from karaoke bar song lists in order to curb the violence. Anka spoke about the phenomenon in a 2024 interview with Billboard: "I went to the Philippines just a few months ago and they said, 'Yeah, it's for real! If they don't like the way you sing it, they shoot you.'"