Dear Sun Spots: I have looked in vain for someone to burn a CD from a cassette tape for me. Is there anyone in the Rumford, Lewiston-Auburn or surrounding areas who could do the job for me? I can be reached at (207) 562-7523. Thank you. – Bitsy Ionta, No Town.

Dear Sun Spots: I am at the end of an afghan and have run out of yarn. I have called Red Heart but they have discontinued making this color. Does anyone have Art. E300, 0403 Taupe Heather Dye Lot 5765? – No Name, Turner.

Dear Sun Spots: Do you or any of your readers know the words to Frank Sinatra’s “I Did It My Way.” I would appreciate it very much. – No Name, Auburn.

Answer: Sun Spots located the following words online at www.vex.net. You may be interested in noting that the music and French lyrics to this song are by Claude Francois, Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibault as noted online at www.pbs.org. English lyrics are by Paul Anka. It was hit No. 27 on the Top 40 charts in 1969. According to public broadcasting, Capitol Records executive Alan Livingston, believes Sinatra was telling a story in “My Way.” Frank had lived through every conceivable emotion. He had unhappy divorces, lost women he didn’t want to lose and experienced his career going down the tubes. He went through everything that could happen to a young man who had been the teenage idol from the ’40s. Livingston believed these experiences gave him credibility as well as the ability to interpret a lyric and to phrase it.

Mitch Miller, a legendary hit-maker who headed Columbia’s popular music department when that label dropped Sinatra in 1952, had little patience for those who attributed artistic success to life experience. He liked to tell singers: “Emotion is not something you feel. It’s something you make the listener feel.” What separates artists from also-rans in Miller’s view is “craftsmanship,” which he defined as “the ability to bring all your talent together at a certain moment” no matter what you were feeling.

Even at the lowest points in his career, Miller said, Sinatra always had craftsmanship.

My Way

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’ve traveled each and ev’ry highway;

But 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,

But 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,

“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!

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