Who recorded it first
My Way
Not a Frank Sinatra original — a 1967 Claude François single
“My Way” is heard as Frank Sinatra’s own invention — the record he made to sum himself up. The song on it already existed: Claude François recorded it in Paris on 17 September 1967 as “Comme d’habitude” and released it that November on Disques Flèche, the label he owned. The music is by Jacques Revaux, with French lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and François himself ↗; Paul Anka bought the adaptation rights after hearing it on French radio and wrote an entirely new English lyric. The French original was a genuine hit at home — No. 3 on the French hit parade, more than 200,000 copies sold — but it is a song about a marriage gone quietly cold, not a life summed up without regret.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Issued November 1967 in France as a 7-inch EP on Disques Flèche / Philips (catalogue 424 550 BE), alongside “L’Homme au traîneau” and “La plus belle chose du monde”. Recorded 17 September 1967 at Studio de la Gaîté, Paris, arranged by David Whitaker.
Charted A real French hit: No. 3 on the French hit parade by 3 February 1968, past 200,000 copies sold — but never an English-language record.
Hear Claude François, “Comme d’habitude” — the 1967 studio recording www.youtube.com · An auto-generated Art Track on the official “Claude François - Topic” channel, described as “Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group” and carrying a ℗ 1967 Mercury Music Group line. Its running time of 4:09 matches the 4:11 logged for the 1967 Disques Flèche recording at MusicBrainz, so this is the original take and not a later re-cut.How the record travelled
Composed by Jacques Revaux in February 1967 as an English-lyric demo called “For Me”, and turned down by a queue of French stars before Claude François took it and rewrote it with Gilles Thibaut — per the French-language account of the song ↗.
The November 1967 French EP is catalogued at MusicBrainz, with the Disques Flèche / Philips credit and catalogue number ↗.
Paul Anka acquired the adaptation and recording rights for a nominal one dollar, the original writers keeping their royalty shares — documented on the English song’s page ↗.
Before Anka’s lyric stuck, a young David Bowie was asked by his publisher to attempt an English version; his “Even a Fool Learns to Love” was rejected — as recorded on the original song’s page ↗. A demo was cut, but the producers did not take the version further, per the French-language article ↗.
The strongest published counter-claim to “François recorded it first” sits in the English Wikipedia article, which states in an uncited sentence that Hervé Vilard released a version as a B-side before François. The French-language account is more specific and contradicts it: Vilard accepted the song for the B-side of a forthcoming 45, but Jacques Revaux talked him into giving it up ↗ before any release — and no such recording is catalogued at MusicBrainz. François’s remains the first commercially released recording of the melody.
Wikipedia: “Comme d’habitude” — original, adaptations and coversKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
Right song, wrong first record
The confusion here is not about who wrote it — it is about which record came first, and in which language.
Frank Sinatra
His Reprise single is so completely identified with him that it reads as an original written to order. It is an English adaptation of an existing French record.
Claude François
Recorded 17 September 1967 in Paris and released that November on Disques Flèche as “Comme d’habitude”. It reached No. 3 in France.
Jacques Revaux, Gilles Thibaut and Claude François — then Paul Anka
Revaux composed the music; Thibaut and François wrote the French lyric; Anka wrote the English one. Sinatra wrote none of it.
The first record of this melody is a French single from November 1967 — and its subject is a marriage gone cold, not a life without regrets.
Context
Why the cover swallowed the original
Most eclipsed originals lose to a better arrangement. This one lost to a change of subject. “Comme d’habitude” is a small, domestic song — two people performing their marriage out of habit — and Claude François, whose own relationship was ending, sang it to a French audience that took it to No. 3. Paul Anka kept the melody and threw the meaning away, writing an English lyric about looking back over a whole life. That is a subject with no borders.
Then it went to the one singer who could make a summing-up sound earned rather than boastful. Sinatra’s record only reached No. 27 in the States, a useful reminder that the song did not conquer the world in a week — it seeped in, through weddings, retirements and funerals, until it was inescapable. By then the French single had been filed away as a curiosity, if it was known at all.
The chronology, step by step
- February 1967 — Jacques Revaux composes the melody and offers it around as “For Me”, with English words. Several French singers pass on it.
- 17 September 1967 — Claude François records it as “Comme d’habitude” at Studio de la Gaîté in Paris, with a new French lyric by Gilles Thibaut and himself, arranged by David Whitaker.
- November 1967 — the record is released in France on Disques Flèche / Philips, catalogue 424 550 BE.
- 3 February 1968 — it stands at No. 3 on the French hit parade, on its way past 200,000 copies sold.
- 1968 — David Bowie is asked to write an English lyric; his attempt, “Even a Fool Learns to Love”, is demoed and rejected, and the producers take it no further.
- 1968 — Paul Anka, having heard the song on French radio, acquires the adaptation rights for a nominal one dollar and writes a new English lyric aimed squarely at Sinatra.
- 30 December 1968 — Frank Sinatra records “My Way”. Reprise releases it in 1969; it peaks at No. 27 in the US and No. 5 in the UK.
The tune crossed the Channel intact. The song did not.