After hearing Paul Anka sing the words, "Here we are now, entertain us," in a slightly different context than they were heard originally - with neither angst nor sarcasm - there is only one question that comes to mind.

What were you thinking?

Anka laughs, "Pat Boone!"

Many of us have forgotten, and rightly so, but the Prince of Lounge Singers remembers Pat Boone's 1997 album, In a Metal Mood: No More Mister Nice Guy, on which the whitebread crooner pours mayonnaise on Enter Sandman among other metal classics. Boone hasn't been heard from since (apparently he went into hiding over fear of the Y2K bug in 1999; someone ought to tell him it's safe to come out now) - but he's not even in Paul Anka's league. Anka's new album is a giant step up the ladder of cheese: Rock Swings, a collection of jazzified grunge-era covers, including Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun. It's no joke. Unless it is.

If you think this is strange, remember that Sid Vicious punked Anka's My Way - actually adding angst and sarcasm to the song Frank Sinatra made huge.

Rock Swings is "revenge," Anka jokes.

Just kidding. We joke because we love. There is little greater love than that which is felt among fans of this Ottawa-born composer and performer, last seen in Edmonton belting out Having My Baby with Wayne Gretzky at a local bar back in the '80s. We have an eyewitness account to back it up. That's another story.

Anka performs tomorrow night at the Jubilee Auditorium. He will be accompanied by his large band of many colours. His tie will probably end up undone as he performs selections from the aforementioned swingin' rock album, plus such chestnuts as Diana and Put Your Head on My Shoulder that real fans paid to hear. He aims to please. He is a showman from the old school.

Anka says Rock Swings was conceived because everyone expected him to record jazz standards - just like everyone from Rod Stewart to Missy Elliot to Anka protege Michael Buble to probably Buble's dog by now. It's a fad - a fad that's lasted 90 years, as Buble is fond of saying, but a fad all the same.

"Everybody jumped on it," Anka says. "And that's why I went the other direction. The record company came to me and said, 'Oh, you're going to do a swing album because you're the guy, you did Buble, you know how to do it, and you grew up with it,' and I said that's precisely why I'm not doing it. It's been done to death and by the time I get out there, it's boring."

With songs hand-picked by Anka - also including the Cure's Love Cats, Oasis's Wonderwall, Bon Jovi's It's My Life and Van Halen's Jump - the record was forged with all the powers of arranger, composer and financier Anka has at his disposal.

No expense was spared. Only the heaviest of heavy cats were employed. Guys with degrees in music wrote the horn charts. Despite its obvious novelty applications, Rock Swings is a real big-band album.

Song selection was the clincher. They all had to be a "top 10 hits," Anka says. He says he can hear a piece of music differently than the layman, can instantly "bend" any tune to suit his taste. A great song can stand up in any context, he says.

Moreover, once a hit song has been embraced by the masses, it belongs to the world, open to any interpretation or context the listener desires. It's not up to the artist anymore.

As the 64-year-old singer puts it, "A hit's a hit. In any era."

Responding to the remark that his version of Smells Like Teen Spirit is being played on a continuous loop to Kurt Cobain in hell - we joke because we love - Anka comes back with an unlikely testimonial. Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl digs it.

Anka says, "Dave called and he said, 'classic, can't believe it, I love it!' He had an open mind about it. It's the same when I heard the Sid Vicious record of My Way. I said, you know what? I'm giving the guy the licence. He was sincere about it. I got it. It was the best he could do, and I wasn't going to stand in his way or in any way impair him. I spoke to Steve Jones and he said Sid was sincere. And I said, 'Well, if that's the way he felt it, then absolutely, go for it.' "

We can only hope that Kurt Cobain would've felt the same way.

There's no evidence that teen spirit smells any different today than it did when Paul Anka was a teen idol.