He may be 84, and his biggest hits are older — in some cases considerably — than the average user. But TikTok has a fan in Paul Anka.
That’s because his songbook, including “Put Your Head on My Shoulder,” “My Way” (for Frank Sinatra) and even “(You’re) Having My Baby,” are getting a new life on the app, soundtracking reels, gender reveals and more. Consequently, Anka has TikTok on his phone and iPad, and he and publisher Primary Wave keep tabs on the phenomenon — which is chronicled as part of the HBO documentary Paul Anka: His Way, premiering on Dec. 1.
“It’s somewhat amusing, in a sense, and gratifying,” Anka tells Billboard. “I just left Mexico City, 10,000 people (at a show) and I’ve got teenagers running around because of TikTok. No one in their vision years ago would say to you, ‘There’s gonna be TikTok.’ I would’ve told them they’re nuts. What is this? Why is this? How is this? Where did this come from? It’s unbelievable. But, because of TikTok, all these kids know these songs. That’s great.”
Now Anka has several new projects — the documentary, a new album in 2026 and a jukebox musical — that will give his new fans, as well as longtime followers, a chance to immerse themselves in his life, and his way of doing things.
Acknowledging that “we’re doc-overwhelmed these days,” Anka says he’s been reticent about having his own documentary out. “People had come to me, and in meetings I felt like, ‘This doesn’t feel right. There’s not enough commitment. There’s not enough creative,’ blah, blah, blah,” he explains. But he connected with Paul Anka: His Way director John Maggio (Mr. Saturday Night) and his team — enough to greenlight the project and even cede a great deal of creative control over the project, which premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
“I didn’t really want to have any credits as producer or anything like that,” Anka says. “My whole take was, ‘You guys know what you’re doing. I don’t want any talking heads. I don’t want 30 friends raving about me.’ I wasn’t into that. It was trusting in (Maggio and company) to follow me around and see what I’m about. The journey’s been culminating to this point to where the doc became something I wanted to do.”
Times of His Life
The story is, of course, epic. Anka came to New York from his native Ottawa when he was 15, hitting quickly with “Diana” in 1957. Part of corps of new pop heroes that included Pat Boone, Bobby Darin and Frankie Avalon, Anka established himself as a multi-threat singer (48 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including 10 top 10s and two No. 1s) performer, actor and songwriter. As the lattermost, he penned hits for (or contributing to collaborations with) Sinatra, Buddy Holly (“It Doesn’t Matter Anymore”), Sammy Davis Jr. (“I’m Not Anyone”), Tom Jones (“She’s a Lady”), Barbra Streisand (“Jubilation”), Michael Jackson (“Love Never Felt So Good”) and Drake (“Don’t Matter to Me”).
Anka also famously wrote “Johnny’s Theme” for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and talks in the documentary about having to give Carson credit and half of the publishing rights to have the song used over the objections of musical director Skitch Henderson. “I called it my college song,” Anka says. “It put my kids through college.”
It’s those songwriting achievements he wanted to be front and center of the documentary. “I was a writer; that was my gravitas,” Anka explains now. “As a kid I said, ‘I’m not gonna last in this business if I’m not the writer. I had that discussion with the Beatles when I met them; they weren’t writers yet, they were a cover band, and in Paris, when I met them, I said, ‘You gotta write! You gotta write!’
“The writing thing was what I was about, so I told the (documentary team), ‘Let’s educate them about what I’ve written. I wanted to put the emphasis on the creative side.’”
Paul Anka: His Way offers some look into his personal life (three marriages and six children, one of whom is married to Jason Bateman), but the film is free of some of the angsty tropes usually found in documentaries. “I was around all that sh-t — heroin, Frankie Lymon, a lot of others I won’t name — and you make a choice,” Anka explains. “You’re 15 years old and you come down from Canada with this great American dream you’re pursuing, you’re your success, and you don’t want to blow it. So I made a choice there were certain things I was going to do and I wasn’t gonna do. I’m still doing what I’m doing — I’m traveling, I’m performing, creating — because I take care of myself. I live a certain lifestyle. I eat a certain way. I don’t drink hard liquor. I’ve never been a smoker. I’m not tooting my own horn — just basic sh-t. If you want to be around and be coherent, you have to keep your sh-t together.”
Also of note in His Way is that despite Anka’s close relationships with the mob bosses who ran the music and entertainment industries he was working in, he never found himself in a kind of Four Seasons compromise situation.
“In my experience they were the best to work for — they were the only ones to work for,” Anka says. “But I never felt like anyone was moving in on me or strong-arming me or anything like that. I respected them. They respected me. I made money for them. I was told to keep my nose clean. They were gentlemen. I knew all those characters, yeah, but to think anyone who was in it and associated with them was in some way owned, absolutely not.”
Til The Mornin’ Comes
With the documentary coming out, Anka is now turning his attention to the musical, an autobiographical jukebox piece he’s also been reticent to tackle until recently. “I didn’t have a good vibe about the writers we were doing with before,” he says. “It’s tough terra firma, Broadway. I’ve always stayed away from it ’cause it’s dangerous. I’ve seen my friends get knocked out for two years to do it and then they’re dead in a day. I didn’t want to take the time, and we didn’t find the right group of people.”
He’s since partnered with producers out of Canada and brought in Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Curtains) to write the book. “I like what he’s done,” Anka says. “I’ve seen a cross-section of his work and he’s very knowledgeable, very smart. I think he’s going to deliver something great.”
The musical is now “in process,” according to Anka, who expects to take up to two years to have something on the boards. “We’ll probably break it in Toronto,” he predicts. “It’s a gamble in a sense that, as I said earlier, Broadway ain’t that easy, so it’s iffy. But it feels like the right time in my life to do this.”
Coming sooner, on Feb. 13, will be Inspirations of Life and Love, Anka’s first album since 2021, for Green Hill Music and the Sun Label group. Part of a Primary Wave series of the same name, the 11-track set (with four bonus tracks for a deluxe edition) blends new versions of standards such as “It Was a Very Good Year,” “That’s Life” and “Let Me Try Again” along with brand new material penned by Anka and performed by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra with arrangements by Bill Ross, Carlos Rodgarman and others.
“It’s just a bunch of songs that are hopefully inspirational and about love, that simple,” says Anka, who’s stated to appear Dec. 1 on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. “There’s not a lot of uptempo stuff; we wanted to keep it very rich and ballady and emotional, kind of that message. Like, for instance, the Sinatra ‘That’s Life’ is uptempo, a lot of drive and everything, and we turned into more of an inspirational ballad style approach, which I’ve never heard before. I like doing something that’s never been heard before.”
Of his continuing creative drive, Anka notes — as he does in the documentary — that, “I haven’t put my flag on my mountain yet, even at my age. I’ve got the energy to do it. I don’t care what it sells or if I get critically acclaimed. We’ve sold a lot of records. The great challenge for me now is to do something that’s different and I’m really proud of. The rest is living gratefully and balancing your life.”
