‘Killer’ song wins for Osang X-Factor

It’s a song that has cost the lives of not a few Filipinos, that’s why it has become infamously known as the “killer” song which, when sung off-key by drunken men in a beerhouse, would usually provoke equally-drunk clients to shoot the “singer” dead. If I remember right, a “warning” (rather, gentle reminder) has been issued that, to avoid being killed “that way,” you better sing it correctly in public or not at all.

But in the case of Rose “Osang” Fostanes, My Way turned out to be her “victory” song at the X-Factor Israel, eliciting not a bullet but a wildly deafening applause from a unanimously-approving audience and, of course, earning the judges’ nod. Osang, who admitted being gay and who works as a caregiver for members of the LGBT community, delivered My Way with so much passion and so much feeling in a voice so powerful that, I guess, it shook the four corners of the venue and reverberated around the world. Osang is being compared to Susan Boyle who was a sensation in UK’s Britain’s Got Talent.

The song was popularized by Frank Sinatra 40-plus years ago and it became Ol’ Blue Eyes’ unofficial signature song, at the same time becoming a favorite Karaoke sing-along piece of Filipinos especially, as I was saying, during drinking sessions.

It was Paul Anka who wrote the song’s English version inspired by the French original titled Comme d’Habitude (As Usual) composed in 1967 by Jacques Revaux and Claude Francois who also sang it. Anka’s lyrics have nothing to do at all with Comme d’Habitude which is about the end of love affair while Anka’s is about a man in the twilight of his life and career — you know, 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 traveled each and every highway. And more, much more than this I did it my way.

“My Way was more personal to Frank Sinatra than to me,” Anka told The STAR in an exclusive interview when he came to do a concert at the Big Dome in 2006. “I heard that song (the French original) on the radio in 1968 when I visited Paris. It was the melody that I heard and I changed it a little bit and put new words. I wrote the song specially for Sinatra because he was a friend. He told me that he was retiring and I wrote it for him. I remember that I wrote it on my electric typewriter in my New York apartment during a thunderstorm. I finished the song at 5 a.m. When Sinatra heard it, he wanted to immediately record it. The track was done in two takes. Then, they called me in New York and played the recording over the speakers. I started crying. It was the turning point of my career.”

Anka recorded the song after Sinatra and, since then, several singers have covered the song.

It was the perfect piece for Osang during the X-Factor finals because Osang, as the song says, has no regrets about the twists and turns in her life, facing it all with her head held high, doing what she had to do without exemption.

The song’s last stanza is a fitting tribute to the life struggle of Rose “Osang” Fostanes who captured the attention and affection of the world with her heart-rending rendition that made her an overnight sensation:

To think I did all that

And may I say not in a shy way

Oh 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 not

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

Why Lian posed for Playboy

When the Playboy local edition hit the stands late last year, with Lian Paz featured on two versions of the cover, a lot of people wondered, why did she have to do it?

“I did it not only because it’s a prestigious men’s magazine pero dahil I wanted to prove something to myself,” Lian was quoted by the mag as saying.

It was also Lian’s way of regaining her self-esteem after her marriage to Paolo Contis hit the rocks.

“No regrets,” Lian told Funfare. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have two beautiful angels,” referring to her daughters who are the sum total of Lian and Paolo’s best qualities.

Free again, Lian said she is afraid to fall in love again, that’s why she’s extra-careful, seriously assessing every eligible who shows interest in her.

“There’s a special someone but we are not yet committed to each other,” was all she would say.

(E-mail reactions at [email protected]. You may also send your questions to [email protected]. For more updates, photos and videos visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.)