Elvis’ singles at this point have turned their back on the odder excesses of “Wooden Heart” et al. and the King has become a sort of one-man Status Quo, offering competent wodges of boogie like this, which do nothing to stir the pulse or raise the bile. The singing is always velvet but the records lack conviction – the whole Presley project seems moribund (not, of course, commercially moribund).
Score: 4
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This is actually one of my favourite Elvis records. Not sure why, as if you take any time at all to analyse it, it’s rubbish. But there’s something about it that I like. Maybe I just like the words.
Agree with the above completely, this seems like a superior Elvis offering and all because the lyric is a lovely, tragic sentiment that rings true in personal experience. Why shouldn’t that sell?
“And when we’re dancing, it almost feels the same…”
This is one of the great heartbreakers for me and his controlled vocal is on the verge of losing it every time he sings “and it’s just breeea-king my heart…”. This new girl is clearly a dreamboat, treats him nice, probably cooks a lovely peanut butter toastie, but she’s not that girl who got away and because of that he’s haunted, torn up. Worse, he can never, ever say what’s on his mind. You just know he’s going to say her name in his sleep.
It was written by Doc Pomus, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the only time as far as I know that these three Brill Building titans wrote together.
On the flip is L&S’s Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello which trundles along in a sweet enough countrypolitan way until the middle eight when the chords go minor and Elvis suddenly switches up an octave and sounds incredibly vulnerable.
Tracing aspects of his life in song is generally much easier in the hillbilly cat 50s and the post-Priscilla 70s but, god, he sounds like a lonely man here.
this does start off sounding pretty generic Elvis, but I agree with Wichita about the sense of loss that wells up from the ‘and when we’re dancing…’ line.
Given how close they were I wonder whether Elvis was thinking of his recently deceased mother, which puts a whole other spin on ‘She’s not you’
I dunno about “Just tell her Jim says hello”, most people could do that song fine, it’s not the performance itself, it’s more that his name is clearly Elvis, so why is he saying “Just tell her Jim says hello”, the girl would be asking “Who’s Jim?”
The UK’s tolerance for Elvis’ middling output is one of the interesting things I’m learning about from this blog.
Not a bad song, probably better than Good Luck Charm, but a little forgettable.
I rather like this I would go up to 7/10 here.