“Times Of Your Life” by Paul Anka
“Times of Your Life” is heavily poetic, and what it is harping on appears to be the concept of holding onto memories. And due to the high level of poetry, it can be challenging to definitively pin down what the vocalist is putting forth. But all lyrics and sentiments considered, it seems that what Anka is saying is that whereas memories can be cherished, they cannot be retained. Like once a moment has passed that’s it – it’s gone forever. Therefore the vocalist comes off as if all experiences, as in “the good times and the bad” as well as “all the others in between”, have their value. owing to this, we should appreciate the moment we’re currently in for what it’s worth.
Paul Anka
Back in his heyday, Paul Anka, a singer from Canada who is 80 years old as of the writing of this post, was sorta like mid-20th century version of Justin Bieber. He even dropped an entire album alongside African-American crooner Sam Cooke (1931-1964) back in 1963, before it became common for White and Black artists to collaborate.
But whereas Anka’s reign as a chart-topping musician – having dropped his first single at only 14 years old – was relatively brief (or intermittent in comparison to the Biebs), he still went on to release a lengthy, four decade-long discography and was once dubbed by Time magazine “one of the richest entertainers in the world”.
“Times of Your Life”
“Times of Your Life”, which hit the shelves during November of 1975 via the efforts of United Artists, is the title track from Paul’s 16th studio album.
That said, many of us reading this right now probably never heard of Paul Anka. Still, you may be saying to yourself ‘the title of that song feels quite familiar’. That’s because this is the same tune which Kodak used on their earworming “times of your life” advertising campaign. This was a project which proved so effective that many people rather recognize this track as “the Kodak theme song”.
Said campaign began during the same year of this song’s release. And it lent to “Times of Your Life” becoming Anka’s biggest solo hit of the 1970s. It was also the last song he dropped which actually made it onto the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. To note, this song did top Billboard’s Easy Listening (aka Adult Contemporary) listing, in addition to hitting in Anka’s homeland up north.
As the story goes, Kodak actually utilized this song for the aforementioned campaign before it was officially released. And once it went viral as a result, Paul Anka then decided to officially record and subsequently release the tune.
The writer of this song is a multi-instrumentalist named Roger Nichols, who did so with one of his regular collaborators, vocalist Bill Lane. It was produced by Bob Skaff, who passed away in 2012.
