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Dora Cervantes

Ms. Batty

English 102

19 September 2019

“My Way” of Lyrical Analysis

Literature is something that we always deal with in our everyday lives. Through literature

we can find ourselves learning more about poetry, since it is something that we see more more

often than before. Poetry can be found in many places, one of the places we find poetry more

often is in music and lyrics. When we hear a song most of us do not really pay much attention to

the lyrics and the work it takes to be able to come up with poetry. One of my favorite songs of all

time that really shows strength through the lyrics is My Way by Frank Sinatra. The song My Way

shows efforts and strengths through; elegy, Imagery, and free verse. In many of Sinatra’s work

there is a lot of poetry distributed among the different lyrics, all having different meanings.

Through many years Frank Sinatra did many works, and this is one that took the one of

the top spots. The reason in which this song is one of my favorites is that it is very motivational,

it encourages to do what you desired. One of the verses in the lyrics that stood out is “I've lived a

life that's full I've traveled each and every highway But more, much more than this I did it my

way” (2). This songs has many meanings to it, but the one meaning that stands out is that we

need to put strength into our lives since it does not last forever. In this song of Sinatra it is

reflecting on his live events to show us that he lived his life to the fullest and that we should too.

In a way the lyrics are like a personal journey through his life. We need to be able to in the future

to look at our past and make sure that this is the life we want to keep.
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Since there is a lot of poetry located around the the lyrics, there are different formats in

which they are being shown. Some of the formats that different lyrics are being shown through is

elegy, haiku, free verse, imagery, sonnet, etc. The way in which My Way is being shown is

through imagery. One of the verses in which imagery is well used in the lyrics is, “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” (5).

Imagery is well used here because it uses actions as an example to show how he feels. When he

states “I bit off more than I can chew”, it is trying to say that he did more than what he could

handle. Also when he states “I ate it up and spit it out I faced It all”, he tries to show that when

he did more work than he can he would just try his best to take it in and finish the work and be

proud of the outcome. Through his lyrics he is trying to advice us to get the best out of life, and

when we can not get what we want just try to look for the best outcome there is.

The lyrics play the main role when trying to to create a top hit song. In this song the

lyrics have around the same tone as the music. When the music tends to be happier and more

upbeat than the lyrics it changes the mood of the song. In this song My Way, it does portray the

lyrics because words have a deeper meaning to it and the music has a classical tone to it, in

which leaves the meaning neutral.

For the past decades music is everywhere, in which causes to spread literature. Lyrics is

one of the most underrated pieces of poetry. People may think that since they are just words to a

song it won’t mean anything, but in reality it is the opposite. Through poetry we are able to learn

about others to even the meaning of a certain thing. This is a form of art that many of the artist
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are trying to spread across the world, each song has their own theme and tone that is waiting to

be heard and examine.