I have a doubt: "anyway" or "any way"?

Since always, I thought the lyrics were:

"Anyway, the wind blows; doesn´t really matter to me".

But last week I read a transcription somewhere that said:

"Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me".

And the meaning of the sentence changes. Which one is the right one? (I don´t have the original record and the booklet with the 2011 remastered cd is not reliable).

"Any way" is correct. It's a common expression (fitting in with the "easy come, easy go" line) and was a 1958 popular song, made famous the following year by Doris Day.

i am not convinced of either way being the correct.
consider it:

any way - the correct way to orate this would be "whichever way" - which in the timings of the song would fit fine
anyway - this is a dismissive context a sort of "so what, i know the wind blows regardless" and in your context would fit as well as "any way"
it's just as easy to relate it to "whichever way it blows it's of no consequence to me"
as it is to say "i know it blows, so what?"

both work equally well...and without Freddie's handwritten lyrics we will never know

i KNOW IT IS WRITTEN AS A CONSOLATION
A LAST HOPE FOR HIS PREDICAMENT
THE FINAL HOPE

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit
http://biblehub.com/john/3-8.htm

I would have said any way, it just seems to make more sense with the phrasing and emphasis. Although all the lyric sleeves I have say anyway, so I don't know.

I would definitely say 'any way'.

Semantically it makes much more sense, and the phrasing also fits perfectly, since there's no pause after it and before 'the wind blows', which you'd ideally need if you were phrasing 'anyway, the wind blows'.

Its 'the direction of the wind is irrelevant to me' as in, everything is irrelevant as the song is about a man who has reached such desperation he has ended it all with a bullet. Am I the only one who sees this?

Its about suicide.

the first time it is sung - first verse
it really could be taken as "any way" or "anyway"
reason i say this...the inflection on all of the individual words in the sentence - they are all broken up from each other to make six individual separate notes (listen)

the second time it's sung - end of song - to my ears it sounds like one word "anyway"

This is really quite cool. Thanks Silken. Like you, I had never remotely considered that it was anything but my original assumption, which is 'any way'. That still seems to me to be what fits thematically and logically. I checked the Complete Illustrated Lyrics book last night and in there it is 'anyway' as it has been in other printed references. Which might mean something or nothing. It's not hard to repeat the same mistake throughout the years on something like this. It intriguing to imagine Fred doing this on purpose though, knowing that like most songwriters he preferred open interpretations of his songs. To have 'any way' have the most coherence for me but the typed word being different certainly adds a bit of interesting 'huh!'.

Just for fun I searched Brian's site for both phrasings and unfortunately both appear in various places, but none that seem to be directly written by him. Wikipedia notes it as "any way the wind blows". So nothing remotely definitive, but interesting to discover a puzzle that I hand't known existed.

to me it seems the begnning of the song
is this the real life is this just a fantasy caught in a landslide no escape from reality
open you eyes look upto the skies and see

IS a philosophical exploration of the meaning to life
the reposnse open your eyes look up the skies or heavens and see
is like an answer to that question but he refuses it

the chracter comes back to self as an excuse
im just a pooe boy
i have no time for such things
and dont want to be bothered by that
i am young and just want to live my life


then the next section is about how serious life gets
all the fun easy come easy go evaporates from his life when
bad stuff starts to happen
and life gets serious
just killed a man etc

then we have him all tied up in this shokcing drama and eventually he dies
and is in the end betrayed

so the ending part
where we again have nothing really matters
anyone can see and anyway the wind blows
is in my opinion having a far differenet meaning than too the first time we heard it

it is a reflection of how he used to think but now he has been through all this and the ending takes on a new meaning
as i said i think it is about learning that the philosophical question abandoned by a the youth who is now a man confronted with the harsh realites of what his life and death came to and how horrfic they were , it is about re looking at his folly and the attitude to the important things in life and his returning to them at the end
has a different meaning

and the wind blows at the end is a kind of consolation a hope that i think does have a spritual context. nothing really matters now BECAUSE,
THE WIND DOES BLOW!
In fact Freddie made it quite clear
when he sang the song live as to what the final words were meant to convey , YOU CANHEAR HIM NOW RIGHT AT THE END OF THE SONG

'ANYWAY THE WIND ......BLOWS!'

it's a pity there's no handwritten lyrics to see anywhere? that'd seal it

It's definitely "any way" (as in any direction), as opposed to "anyway" (as in "however").

Definitely "any way", just as moog puts it.

Interesting take on it being about suicide, btw: never really thought of it that way, the man being killed being the storyteller himself.

First time I've heard anyone say that, tbh.

To be honest it just came to me when I was giving my spin on any way/anyway but it makes perfect sense the more I think about it.